Where can I find documentation for shell commands?

Question

For using a shell commands through a terminal program, where can I find documentation or help or man pages for the commands as implemented in Android?

While it would be nice to have them on the device via man, PDF or web-based would be fine, too.

When I run "man" from terminal, I get an error and I haven't found a good source online.

Answer 1

You may have a look at http://www.busybox.net/downloads/BusyBox.html for a description of busybox and the commands provided by it. And trust me, if you are going to do work in the console, you probably want to use busybox.

Answer 2

Most of the terminal commands in android are the limited version of standard Linux/Unix/POSIX terminal commands, provided by the toolbox program. Notably absent from toolbox is the cp (file copy) command, you must use cat file1 > file2 instead. If you spend a lot of time in the shell, you may want to install busybox, which provides a richer set of standard POSIX commands.

There some bit about android shell here: http://benno.id.au/blog/2007/11/13/android-under-the-hood

Answer 3

Since I stumbled over the same problem as you did I started to compile a list of useful commands in the Android Shell including examples. A German version is on my blog.

Answer 4

I would suggest starting an Android Virtual Device (AVD), connecting to it with adb, and running the Android shell command in question:

pdurbin@macbook ~$ cd /Applications/eclipse/android-sdk-mac_x86/platform-tools
pdurbin@macbook platform-tools$ ./adb -s emulator-5554 shell
# /system/bin/pm
usage: pm [list|path|install|uninstall]
       pm list packages [-f]
       pm list permission-groups
       pm list permissions [-g] [-f] [-d] [-u] [GROUP]
       pm list instrumentation [-f] [TARGET-PACKAGE]
       pm list features
       pm path PACKAGE
       pm install [-l] [-r] [-t] [-i INSTALLER_PACKAGE_NAME] [-s] [-f] PATH
       pm uninstall [-k] PACKAGE
       pm enable PACKAGE_OR_COMPONENT
       pm disable PACKAGE_OR_COMPONENT
       pm setInstallLocation [0/auto] [1/internal] [2/external]
[snip]

If anyone knows the flag to give Android shell commands to just print the usage screen, please let me know. I tried --help, -help, -h, --usage, etc.

See http://en.androidwiki.com/wiki/ADB_Shell_Command_Reference for a list of shell commands or better yet, run ls /system/bin.

See also http://developer.android.com/guide/developing/tools/adb.html#shellcommands