manpath

Manpath refers to both a small utility and the environment variable that influence where the system’s manual pages are searched from. On Unix-like systems, the man command looks for manual pages in a set of directories, and manpath is the program used to display that search path. The term is also used informally to describe the search path itself.

The search path used by man can be overridden by the environment variable MANPATH. When MANPATH is set, the man command typically uses its value as the complete list of directories to search, rather than deriving paths from system configuration. When MANPATH is not set, the search path is determined by system configuration and default directories, often including locations such as /usr/share/man and /usr/local/share/man, possibly supplemented by a configuration file such as /etc/manpath.config that governs the per-architecture or per-distribution layout.

The manpath program prints the directories that the man command will search, usually as a colon-separated list. The exact format can vary by implementation, but the purpose is to reveal the active search path so users can understand where manual pages will be located or added. In practice, users may rely on manpath to troubleshoot missing or misplaced pages, or to customize their environment for specific software stacks.

Typical usage is simple: running manpath displays the current search path. Users may also temporarily override it by exporting MANPATH in the shell or by invoking the manpath command with a manually supplied value in some environments. The behavior of MANPATH and the configuration file can differ across Unix variants and distributions.