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The UPM is divided into eight major sections, preceded by a table of contents and a KWIC (Key Word In Context) index. The latter is mostly very useful but is occasionally annoying, as some indexed material does not exist, and some existing material is not indexed.
Within each section of the manual, the material is arranged alphabetically by subject name. The section number is conventionally appended to the subject name, since some subjects appear in more than one section, e.g. “CHDIR(I)” and “CHDIR(II)”.
contains commands which either are recognised by the “shell” command interpreter, or are the names of standard user utility programs;
contains “system calls” which are operating system routines which may be invoked from a user program to obtain operating system service. A study of the operating system will render most of these quite familiar;
contains “subroutines” which are library routines which may be called from a user program. To the ordinary programmer, the distinctions between Sections II and III often appear somewhat arbitrary. Most of Section III is irrelevant to the operating system;
describes “special files”, which is another name for peripheral devices. Some of these are relevant, and some merely interesting. It depends where you are;
describes “File Formats and Conventions”. A lot of highly relevant information is tucked away in this section;
describe “User Maintained” programs and subroutines. No UNIXophile will ignore these sections, but they are not particularly relevant to the operating system;
describes “system maintenance” (software, not hardware!). There is lots of useful information here, especially if you are interested in how a UNIX installation is managed.
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