help

Syntax

help[cmd|pattern|special][-usage][-v][-section sectionname][-b]

Description

Displays the list of commands that are built into the UEFI Shell.

Options

cmd

Specifies the command for which to display help.

pattern

Specifies the pattern to use for displaying command help.

special

Displays a list of the special characters used in the shell command line.

-usage

Displays usage information for the command. This results in the same display as specifying –section:NAME and –section:SYNOPSIS.

-v

Displays verbose information.

-section sectionname

Displays the specified section of the help information.

-b

Displays the help output one screen at a time.

Usage

If no options are specified, each command is displayed along with a brief description of its function. If–v is specified, all help information for the specified commands appears. If –section is specified, only the help section specified appears (see below). If –usage is specified, the command, a brief description, and the usage appears.

The help text is gathered from UCS-2 text files found in the directory where the shell or shell command executable is located. The files have the name command-name.man , where command-name is the name of the shell command. The files follow a subset of the MAN page format, as described below.

If no option is specified, only the NAME section of the page appears.

Examples

To display the list of commands in the UEFI Shell and break after one screen:

Shell> help –b
alias         - Displays, creates, or deletes UEFI Shell aliases.
attrib        - Displays or changes the attributes of files or directories.
cd            - Displays or changes the current directory.
cls           - Clears standard output and optionally changes background color.
comp          - Compares the contents of two files on a byte for byte basis.

To display help information about the shell command ls (use any of the following syntax options):

Shell> help ls 
Shell> ? ls
Shell> ls -?

To display the list of commands starting with the character p:

Shell> help p*
pause – Prints a message and suspends for keyboard input