Providing documentation for a Unix command

Question

I made a Unix command called macmac2unix, which converts a Word file from Mac to Unix.

How can I provide documentation for my command?

I want to read about my command with man:

man macmac2unix

BTW--The name "mac2unix" is already in common use for a utility that changes line-ending characters on ordinary text files. Using that name may cause confusion... — dmckee --- ex-moderator kitten
– dmckee --- ex-moderator kitten, Commented Mar 6, 2009 at 16:48
I'd suggest changing the question to make it generic. The fact that you have "recreated" mac2unix is distracting from the point of how to create a man page. — Judge Maygarden
– Judge Maygarden, Commented Mar 6, 2009 at 16:50

Peter Mortensen · Accepted Answer · 2025-09-18 01:36:48Z

3

I recommend Perl's POD format. Despite the name, you can use it outside of Perl scripts, and the pod2man command ships with OS X. It's a lot more sensible than troff. It reminds me of Markdown.

Here's an example POD document and the conversion script.

edited Sep 18 at 1:36

Peter Mortensen

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answered Mar 6, 2009 at 20:30

Dave Dribin

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Peter Mortensen · Accepted Answer · 2025-09-18 01:34:20Z

0

You can apparently also use DocBook to provide documentation for a Unix command.

edited Sep 18 at 1:34

Peter Mortensen

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answered Apr 6, 2009 at 22:49

Léo Léopold Hertz 준영

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