What does the number in parentheses shown after Unix command names in manpages mean?

Question

For example: man(1), find(3), updatedb(2)? What do the numbers in parentheses (Brit. "brackets") mean?

Answer 1

The number refers to the section of the manual (man). For example, find(3) means that the find command is in section 3 of the manual.

Here is a reference on the standard sections:

1 User Commands

2 System Calls

3 C Library Functions

4 Devices and Special Files

5 File Formats and Conventions

6 Games

7 Miscellanea

8 System Administration tools and Daemons