SYNOPSIS
help [command ...]
DESCRIPTION
The help command provides information about the MKS utility specified by command.
help acts as a mnemonic reference tool for command options. It offers more information than the standard usage message displayed by all commands, but considerably less than the reference pages. Output for a single command is intentionally brief and usually fits on one screen.
help first looks for the help file provided in ROOTDIR/etc/helpfile. If help cannot find this file, it looks for helpfile in the directory where the help command is located.
If help cannot find command, and if HELPCMD is set, it invokes this help utility.
help uses a helpindex file to quickly locate information in the help file. If help cannot find a helpindex file, it creates one in the same directory that holds the help file. If you change the help file (for example, add new information), help checks the modification dates and rebuilds the helpindex file if the help file has a later date.
You can assign a list of directories (separated by semicolons on Windows systems, or by colons on UNIX systems) to the environment variable HELP. help searches these directories (in addition to ROOTDIR/etc) when looking for the helpfile and helpindex files. Such directories can hold help information you create yourself.
ENVIRONMENT VARIABLES
- HELP
-
contains a list of additional path names to search when looking for helpfile and helpindex files.
- HELPCMD
-
contains the path name for an additional command to execute if the help command fails to find help. This lets users add specialized help commands for their environment.
- ROOTDIR
-
contains the path name of MKS Toolkit's root directory on Windows systems.
FILES
- ROOTDIR/etc/man1/*.1
-
unformatted manual entries.
- ROOTDIR/etc/helpfile
-
help information obtained from reference pages.
- ROOTDIR/etc/helpindex
-
an index to ROOTDIR/etc/helpfile to speed up the search for help information.
The /etc directory is found under $ROOTDIR if the ROOTDIR environment variable is defined; otherwise, it is found under your system's root directory (usually c:\).
DIAGNOSTICS
Possible exit status values are:
- 0
-
Successful completion.
- 1
-
Failure because the help file could not be found or because it contained no information on the desired command.
PORTABILITY
Windows 2000. Windows XP. Windows Server 2003. Windows Vista. Some UNIX systems.
NOTE
The help command supplied with MKS Toolkit should not be confused with the help commands native to Windows.
AVAILABILITY
MKS Toolkit for Power Users
MKS Toolkit for System Administrators
MKS Toolkit for Developers
MKS Toolkit for Interoperability
MKS Toolkit for Professional Developers
MKS Toolkit for Enterprise Developers
MKS Toolkit for Enterprise Developers 64-Bit Edition
SEE ALSO
- Commands:
- man
- Miscellaneous:
- envvar
MKS Toolkit 9.2 Documentation Build 16.