gno/usr.bin/man/whatis.1

.\" This man page is based on another man page copyright (c) 1980
.\" by the Regents of the University of California.
.\" All rights reserved.  The Berkeley software License Agreement
.\" specifies the terms and conditions for redistribution.
.\"
.\" While this manual page is based on one from UCB, the included
.\" C source, makefile, and executables are copyright (c) 1995
.\" by Devin Reade <gdr@myrias.com>.  All rights reserved.
.\"
.TH WHATIS 1 "Commands and Applications" "24 July 95" "Version 3.0"
.SH NAME
whatis, apropos \- locate commands by name or keyword lookup
.SH SYNOPSIS
.BR apropos
[[
.BI \-M path
] | [
.BI \-m path
]] [
.BR -nV
]
.IR keyword " ..."
.br
.BR whatis
[[
.BI \-M path
] | [
.BI \-m path
]] [
.BR -nV
]
.IR keyword ...
.SH DESCRIPTION
.BR whatis
shows the manual page title line for the specified
.IR keyword (s),
while
.BR apropos
shows which manual pages contain instances of any of the given
.IR keyword (s)
in their title line.
Each word is considered separately and, for
.BR apropos ,
the case of letters is ignored.
Words which are part of other words are considered; when looking for
.IR compile ,
.BR apropos
will also list all instances of
.IR compiler .
.LP
If a line output by either of these commands starts with
.nf

     \fIname\fR (\fIsection\fR) ...

.fi
you can enter
.BI man " section name"
to get its documentation.
.SH OPTIONS
.IP "\fB\-M\fP \fIpath\fP"
Override the list of standard directories
.BR apropos
or
.BR whatis
search for the
.BR whatis
database.
The supplied
.I path
must be a colon\- or space\-delimited list of directories.
This search path may also be set using the environment variable
.BR MANPATH .
The space delimiter is provided for compatibility with GS/OS's
use of the colon as a pathname component delimiter.  If the search
path contains no spaces nor
.B /
characters (such as
.BR :usr:local:man ),
it is assumed to be a single path, not a list of paths.
If spaces are used as delimiters, remember to quote them from the
shell.
.IP "\fB\-m\fP \fIpath\fP"
Augment the list of standard directories
.BR apropos
or
.BR whatis
search for its database.
The supplied
.I path
must be a colon\- or space\-delimited list of directories.
These directories will be searched after the standard directories
or the directories supplied by the
.BR MANPATH
environment variable are searched.
If spaces are used as delimiters, remember to quote them from the
shell.
.IP \fB-n\fP
Normally, in addition to searching the various
.BR whatis
databases,
.BR apropos
and
.BR whatis
will also search the Orca shell
.BR 15/syscmnd
file.  Specifying the
.BR -n
flag will keep
.BR apropos
and
.BR whatis
from searching this file.
.IP \fB-V\fP
Show version information.
.SH ENVIRONMENT
.IP \fBMANPATH\fP
If set,
its value overrides
.B /usr/man
as the list of directories where
.BR apropos
and
.BR whatis
search for their databases.
(The
.B \-M
flag, in turn, overrides this value.)
See the description of the
.B \-M
flag for syntax details.
.IP \fBUSRMAN\fP
If
.B MANPATH
is not set, then the value of
.B USRMAN
(if set) overrides
.B /usr/man
as the list of directories where
.BR apropos
and
.BR whatis
search for their databases.
(The
.B \-M
flag, in turn, overrides this value.)
See the description of the
.B \-M
flag for syntax details.
.IP \fBMANDIR\fP
If neither
.B MANPATH
nor
.B USRMAN
is set, then the value of
.B MANDIR
(if set) overrides
.B /usr/man
as the list of directories where
.BR apropos
and
.BR whatis
search for their databases.
(The
.B \-M
flag, in turn, overrides this value.)
See the description of the
.B \-M
flag for syntax details.
.SH FILES
.\" .IP \fB/usr/\fR[\fBshare/\fR]\fBman/whatis\fR
.BR /usr/ [ share/ ] man/whatis " \-"
The
.BR whatis (1)
database.
.SH BUGS
Please report any bugs to Devin Reade, <gdr@myrias.ab.ca>.
.SH SEE ALSO
.BR man (1),
.BR whereis (1),
.BR catman (8),
.BR makewhatis (8)
.SH HISTORY
The GNO version of
.BR apropos
first appeared in GNO version 1.0 and was written by Mike Horwath.
This version was rewritten from scratch by Devin Reade.