A POSIX shell client for tldr-pages that provides simplified, community-driven man pages for command-line tools.
tldr is a POSIX shell client for the tldr-pages project, which provides simplified, example-focused documentation for command-line tools. It solves the problem of traditional man pages being too verbose and technical by offering concise, practical examples that help users quickly understand how to use commands.
Developers, system administrators, and command-line users who work across different Unix-like systems and want quick, accessible documentation without installing heavy dependencies.
Developers choose tldr for its extreme portability, minimal dependencies, and ease of setup—it works on virtually any Unix-like system with just a shell and curl. Its caching and customization features make it both efficient and adaptable to individual workflows.
Simplified and community-driven man pages
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Written entirely in /bin/sh with only curl and unzip as dependencies, ensuring it runs on any Unix-like system from Linux to FreeBSD, as emphasized in the README for universal client compatibility.
Automatically caches tldr pages locally to reduce network requests, with configurable refresh intervals via the -u flag, improving performance for frequent use without hitting GitHub ratelimits.
Supports environment variables to customize text colors and styles for different sections (e.g., TLDR_HEADER, TLDR_CODE), allowing personalized documentation display as detailed in the Customization section.
Allows overriding language detection with -L and filtering commands by platform with -p, enabling access to relevant pages for specific systems and preferred languages, per the usage examples.
Requires curl and unzip to be installed and in PATH, which might not be available on minimal or locked-down systems, limiting its use in restricted environments.
The README notes that some customization variables may not work in all shells (e.g., csh or dash), leading to inconsistent styling or functionality across different shell environments.
Admitted as a 'Sunday afternoon project' with 'light testing', it may have undiscovered bugs or edge cases on untested systems, and lacks a built-in update mechanism for the script itself.