ExplainShell: A Web-Based Alternative to the Traditional Linux Man Pages

Sometimes, shell commands can be hard to understand. ExplainShell breaks down such commands into individual options for better comprehension.

No matter how experienced you're with the Linux command line, there will always be times when you'll encounter unfamiliar commands. In such situations, while the natural instinct is to either refer to man pages or google the command to figure out what it does, what if we tell you there's a better (read immersive) way to do it.

Well, as it turns out, there's a tool called ExplainShell that does exactly that: tells you what each part of a shell command does in an easy-to-comprehend manner.

So let's dive in to check out ExplainShell in detail.

What Is ExplainShell?

ExplainShell is a web-based tool that helps you look up unfamiliar shell commands to find out what they do and learn more about them. You can think of it as an online collection of man pages where you can query commands to get a detailed explanation about their purpose, supported arguments, and syntax—all in a well-presented and easy-to-understand manner.

How Does ExplainShell Work?

ExplainShell is an online archive that constitutes a bunch of parsed sections from Ubuntu's man pages repository. It's powered by a few different services in the background that help it find a match for your queried commands in its database.

If there's a match, ExplainShell returns all the relevant information about that command it could pull up from its man page in an intuitive presentation.

Learn More: What Is the Linux Command Line and How Do You Use It?

How to Use ExplainShell

Since ExplainShell is web-based, you don't need to install it on your local machine to use it. Instead, all you have to do is head over to explainshell.com and start making queries for commands you're interested in to learn more about them.

To look up a shell command on ExplainShell, first, copy the command to ensure you're querying the correct command.

Now, either right-click in the search box and select Paste or press Ctrl + V to paste the command you just copied. Alternatively, you may also type in the command manually.

Finally, hit the EXPLAIN button next to the search box to look it up.

ExplainShell will then pull up its explanation and present it on the next page. Here, you'll find that it breaks down the meaning of each part of the command one by one by matching the arguments to the relevant help text in its man page database.

The explanation is laid out such that you have the queried command on top broken down aptly into different sections (and arguments) and explanations for each of them grouped into boxes right below it, connected via lines.

Using your mouse, you can then hover over an argument (or a part of the command) that you don't understand to highlight its explanation.

Moreover, you can click on the hyperlinked command name beside source man pages at the bottom of the page to pull up the explanation source and get more relevant information.

Lastly, although an aesthetic feature, ExplainShell also lets you change the theme of the website. So if you prefer dark mode, you can tap on the theme button below the website name and select Dark from the dropdown menu to switch the site's theme.

What Are ExplainShell's Limitations?

As of writing this, ExplainShell contains 29,761 parsed man pages in its database, and the chances are high that most of the shell commands you'll query on it will get you definite results.

However, that said, it's also likely that the tool won't be able to provide explanations for certain command queries you make. When this happens, ExplainShell's developer suggests submitting an add request with the link over at its GitHub Issues page so they can add it to their database.

Related: Ways to Get Command-Line Help on Linux

Learning New Shell Commands With ExplainShell

Through this guide, you should now probably have an idea of what ExplainShell is and how it can help you decode mysterious shell commands easily.

So now, whenever you come across an unfamiliar command, you can simply go to ExplainShell and find out all the information about it. And in the process, learn what that command does and how to use it.

If you're new to Linux, we recommend you check out these basic commands that will help you learn standard computing tasks.

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