I am trying to print the man page for ls and I am getting output in my file with repeated characters. I am relatively new to bash and I dont know where to start with this issue. This is the command I typed
man ls | cat > file.txt
I expected output like in the terminal
DESCRIPTION
For each operand that names a file of a type other than directory, ls displays its
name as well as any requested, associated information. For each operand that names a
file of type directory, ls displays the names of files contained within that direc-
tory, as well as any requested, associated information.
If no operands are given, the contents of the current directory are displayed. If
more than one operand is given, non-directory operands are displayed first; directory
and non-directory operands are sorted separately and in lexicographical order.
The following options are available:
-@ Display extended attribute keys and sizes in long (-l) output.
-1 (The numeric digit ``one''.) Force output to be one entry per line. This is
the default when output is not to a terminal.
-A List all entries except for . and ... Always set for the super-user.
-a Include directory entries whose names begin with a dot (.).
-B Force printing of non-printable characters (as defined by ctype(3) and cur-
rent locale settings) in file names as \xxx, where xxx is the numeric value
of the character in octal.
-b As -B, but use C escape codes whenever possible.
-C Force multi-column output; this is the default when output is to a terminal.
But what I got as output in my file was like this
DDEESSCCRRIIPPTTIIOONN
For each operand that names a _f_i_l_e of a type other than directory, llss
displays its name as well as any requested, associated information. For
each operand that names a _f_i_l_e of type directory, llss displays the names
of files contained within that directory, as well as any requested, asso-
ciated information.
If no operands are given, the contents of the current directory are dis-
played. If more than one operand is given, non-directory operands are
displayed first; directory and non-directory operands are sorted sepa-
rately and in lexicographical order.
The following options are available:
--@@ Display extended attribute keys and sizes in long (--ll) output.
--11 (The numeric digit ``one''.) Force output to be one entry per
line. This is the default when output is not to a terminal.
--AA List all entries except for _. and _._.. Always set for the super-
user.
--aa Include directory entries whose names begin with a dot (_.).
--BB Force printing of non-printable characters (as defined by
ctype(3) and current locale settings) in file names as \_x_x_x,
where _x_x_x is the numeric value of the character in octal.
--bb As --BB, but use C escape codes whenever possible.
--CC Force multi-column output; this is the default when output is to
a terminal.
--cc Use time when file status was last changed for sorting (--tt) or
What would make it do this and how can I get the man page in readable text?
Some systems have a man program which notices whether it is sending output to the terminal or to a pipe and behaves differently in each case.
For example, on ubuntu linux, man man has an option:
MAN_KEEP_FORMATTING Normally, when output is not being directed to a terminal (such as to a file or a pipe), formatting characters are discarded to make it easier to read the result without special tools. How- ever, if $MAN_KEEP_FORMATTING is set to any non-empty value, these formatting characters are retained. This may be useful for wrappers around man that can interpret formatting charac- ters.
In your case, it seems that man does not behave differently when sending output to a pipe.
There may be an option to turn on the behaviour you are looking for, but it may be simpler just to strip the unwanted characters out of the output. A common method is to use col:
man ls | col -bx > file.txt