.TH help "" "" Command
.PC "Print concise description of command"
\fBhelp [\-d\fIc\fB] [\-f\fIfile\fB] [\-i\fIfile\fB] [\-r] [\fIcommand\fB]...\fR
.PP
.HS
.SH Options
.IC \fB\-d\fIc\fR
Use character \fIc\fR as the delimiter between helpfile entries.
.IC \fB\-f\fIfile\fR
Read \fIfile\fR as the helpfile, instead of the default \fB/usr/lib/helpfile\fR.
.IC \fB\-i\fIfile\fR
Read \fIfile\fR as the helpfile's index, instead of the default
\fB/usr/lib/helpindex\fR.
.IC \fB\-r\fR
Rebuild the helpfile's index.
.Pp
If \fIcommand\fR is omitted, print information about \fB$LASTERROR\fR.
.HE
.B help
prints a concise description of the options available for each specified
.IR command .
If
.I command
is omitted,
.B help
prints a simple description of
itself,
followed by information about the command given by
.BR $LASTERROR ,
which is the last command returning a nonzero exit status.
.PP
.B help
provides more information than the usage message
printed by a command,
but less than the detailed description given by the
.B man
command.
The primary purpose of
.B help
is to refresh your memory if you have forgotten an option to
.IR command .
.PP
.B help
looks in
.B /usr/lib/helpfile
for system information and the file named in environmental variable
.B $HELP
for user-specific information.
Information about a
.I command
begins with a line
.DM
	#\fIcommand\fR
.DE
.PP
and ends with the next line beginning with
\*(Ql#\*(Qr
in
.B /usr/lib/helpfile
or
.B $HELP.
.PP
.B help
recognizes the following options:
.IP \fB\-d\fIc\fR
Use \fIc\fR as the delimiting character within the helpfile, instead of the
default \fB#\fR.
.IP \fB\-f\fIfile\fR
Read the help entries from \fIfile\fR instead from the default,
\fB/usr/lib/helpfile\fR.
.IP \fB\-i\fIfile\fR
Read the helpfile's index from \fIfile\fR instead of from the default,
\fB/usr/lib/helpindex\fR.
.B help
uses the index to speed its retrieval of an entry, and does not work without
it.
.IP \fB\-r\fR
Rebuild the index.
If you modify a helpfile, you must rebuild its index, or \fBhelp\fR will
no longer retrieve items correctly.
.SH Example
The following shows how to rebuild the index for helpfile \fBmyhelp\fR, using
\fB@\fR as the delimiting character:
.DM
	help -d@ -fmyhelp -imyindex -r
.DE
.SH Files
\fB/usr/lib/helpfile\fR \(em Additional system information
.br
\fB/usr/lib/helpindex\fR \(em Index for helpfile
.br
\fB$HELP\fR \(em User information
.br
\fB$LASTERROR\fR \(em Default command help
.SH "See Also"
.Xr "apropos," apropos
.Xr "commands," commands
.Xr "man," man
.Xr "Using COHERENT" using_coh
