If you want a fast way to read the EXAMPLES section only for a command, here is a shell function which creates an ‘eg’ command which only displays the “EXAMPLES” section of manual pages:
eg(){
MAN_KEEP_FORMATTING=1 man "$@" 2>/dev/null \
| sed --quiet --expression='/^E\(\x08.\)X\(\x08.\)\?A\(\x08.\)\?M\(\x08.\)\?P\(\x08.\)\?L\(\x08.\)\?E/{:a;p;n;/^[^ ]/q;ba}' \
| ${MANPAGER:-${PAGER:-pager -s}}
}
Usage:
$ eg tar
EXAMPLES
Create archive.tar from files foo and bar.
tar -cf archive.tar foo bar
List all files in archive.tar verbosely.
tar -tvf archive.tar
Extract all files from archive.tar.
tar -xf archive.tar
$
$ examples su
EXAMPLES
su -m man -c catman
Starts a shell as user man, and runs the command catman. You will
be asked for man's password unless your real UID is 0. Note that
the -m option is required since user “man” does not have a valid
shell by default. In this example, -c is passed to the shell of
the user “man”, and is not interpreted as an argument to su.
su -m man -c 'catman /usr/share/man /usr/local/man'
Same as above, but the target command consists of more than a
single word and hence is quoted for use with the -c option being
passed to the shell. (Most shells expect the argument to -c to be
a single word).
su -m -c staff man -c 'catman /usr/share/man /usr/local/man'
Same as above, but the target command is run with the resource
limits of the login class “staff”. Note: in this example, the
first -c option applies to su while the second is an argument to
the shell being invoked.
su -l foo
Simulate a login for user foo.
su - foo
Same as above.
su - Simulate a login for root.
You probably still want the MAN_KEEP_FORMATTING=1 part, to keep colorization and bolding etc. in the manual page. Also, your solution does not respect the user’s pager preference; the user might prefer to read man pages in “w3m”, for instance.
