whatis - display manual page descriptions
whatis [-dhV] [-r|-w] [-m system[,...]] [-M path] name ...
Each manual page has a short description available within it. whatis
searches the manual page names and displays the manual page descriptions
of any name matched.
name may contain wildcards (-w) or be a regular expression (-r). Using
these options, it may be necessary to quote the name or escape (\) the
special characters to stop the shell from interpreting them.
index databases are used during the search. To produce an old style
text whatis database from the relative index database, issue the command:
whatis -M manpath -w '*' | sort > manpath/whatis
where manpath is a manual page hierarchy such as /usr/man.
-d, --debug
Print debugging information.
-r, --regex
Interpret each name as a regular expression. If a name matches
any part of a page name, a match will be made. This option
causes whatis to be somewhat slower due to the nature of database
searches.
-w, --wildcard
Interpret each name as a pattern containing shell style wildcards.
For a match to be made, an expanded name must match the
entire page name. This option causes whatis to be somewhat
slower due to the nature of database searches.
-m system[,...], --systems=system[,...]
If this system has access to other operating system's manual
page names, they can be accessed using this option. To search
NewOS's manual page names, use the option -m NewOS.
The system specified can be a combination of comma delimited
operating system names. To include a search of the native operating
system's manual page names, include the system name man in
the argument string. This option will override the $SYSTEM
environment variable.
-M path, --manpath=path
Specify an alternate set of colon-delimited manual page hierarchies
to search. By default, apropos uses the $MANPATH environment
variable, unless it is empty or unset, in which case it
will determine an appropriate manpath based on your $PATH environment
variable. This option overrides the contents of $MAN-
PATH.
-h, --help
Print a help message and exit.
-V, --version
Display version and author information.
0 Successful program execution.
1 Usage, syntax or configuration file error.
2 Operational error.
16 No manual pages were found that matched the criteria specified.
SYSTEM If $SYSTEM is set, it will have the same effect as if it had
been specified as the argument to the -m option.
MANPATH [Toc] [Back]
If $MANPATH is set, its value is interpreted as the colon-delimited
manual page hierarchy search path to use.
/usr/share/man/index.(bt|db|dir|pag)
A traditional global index database cache.
/var/cache/man/index.(bt|db|dir|pag)
An alternate or FSSTND compliant global index database cache.
/usr/share/man/.../whatis
A traditional whatis text database.
apropos(1), man(1).
Wilf. ([email protected]).
Fabrizio Polacco ([email protected]).
2.3.20 07 September 2001 whatis(1)
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