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Adding beginner-friendly examples to tcpdump and dig man pages

Julia Evans

EDITOR BRIEF

The author improved the man pages for dig and tcpdump by adding or updating example commands. The focus was on very basic examples for beginners and infrequent users who may not remember how the tools work. The process also surfaced useful details from maintainers, such as a tcpdump option that shows a live packet count while saving captures.

INSIGHTS

Clear examples make command-line tools easier to learn from official docs. If you’re studying coding or systems tools, try reading man pages with examples first and practice the simplest command, then add one option at a time.

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