# Man pages on windows

**URL:** <https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/man-pages-on-windows/64105>\
**Category:** Ruby\
**Created:** [June 22, 2006, 2:05am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/man-pages-on-windows/64105 "2006-06-22T02:05:27Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 3\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![casper\_the\_ghost](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/c/58956e/32.png) [@casper\_the\_ghost](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/casper_the_ghost)\
**Post date:** [June 22, 2006, 2:05am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/man-pages-on-windows/64105/1 "2006-06-22T02:05:27Z")

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I’m running Ruby on Windows. How can i see the man pages for irb, etc?

Bret

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**Author:** ![casper\_the\_ghost](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/c/58956e/32.png) [@casper\_the\_ghost](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/casper_the_ghost)\
**Post date:** [June 22, 2006, 2:47am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/man-pages-on-windows/64105/2 "2006-06-22T02:47:56Z")

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On 6/21/06, removed\_email\_address@domain.invalid [removed\_email\_address@domain.invalid](mailto:removed_email_address@domain.invalid) wrote:

> I’m running Ruby on Windows. How can i see the man pages for irb, etc?

You can’t.

However, “irb --help” works.

-austin

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**Author:** ![casper\_the\_ghost](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/c/58956e/32.png) [@casper\_the\_ghost](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/casper_the_ghost)\
**Post date:** [June 22, 2006, 3:00am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/man-pages-on-windows/64105/3 "2006-06-22T03:00:21Z")

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On 6/21/06, removed\_email\_address@domain.invalid [removed\_email\_address@domain.invalid](mailto:removed_email_address@domain.invalid) wrote:

> I’m running Ruby on Windows. How can i see the man pages for irb, etc?
> 
> Bret

Although ruby itself has a man page, I don’t believe the other 4  
horsemen (irb, ri, gem, and rdoc) have man pages. For their docs, use:

irb --help  
ri --help  
gem --help  
rdoc --help

Incidentally, on my Debian system, I installed Ruby by-hand into  
/opt/ruby-1.8.4, so the ruby man page is  
/opt/ruby-1.8.4/man/man1/ruby.1, and it comes up when running “man  
ruby”, but I’ve got no idea how the man command finds it. I never  
touched my $MANPATH after installing Ruby… though I don’t think  
Debian uses a simple MANPATH env var these days anyway (it instead  
uses some fancy mandb index frobnicator thingy).

Anyhow, no idea how you’d read the ruby man page on an MS platform.  
Google can find you one on the net though:

> **[ruby(1) - Linux man page](https://linux.die.net/man/1/ruby)**
>
> Ruby is an interpreted scripting language for quick and easy object-oriented programming. It has many features to process text files and to do system ...

—John