MirBSD manpage: whatis(1)

WHATIS(1)                    BSD Reference Manual                    WHATIS(1)

NAME

     whatis - describe what a command is

SYNOPSIS

     whatis [-C file] [-M path] [-m path] command [...]

DESCRIPTION

     whatis looks up a given command and gives the header line from the manual
     page. You can then use the man(1) command to get more information. whatis
     will match on a case insensitive basis and for multiple word entries will
     match on each individual word.

     The options are as follows:

     -C file
             Specify an alternate configuration file in man.conf(5) format.
             The default is /etc/man.conf.

     -M path
             Override the list of standard directories whatis searches for its
             database named "whatis.db". The supplied path must be a colon
             (':') separated list of directories. This search path may also be
             set using the environment variable MANPATH.

     -m path
             Augment the list of standard directories whatis searches for its
             database named "whatis.db". The supplied path must be a colon-
             separated list of directories. These directories will be searched
             before the standard directories or the directories supplied with
             the -M option or the MANPATH environment variable are searched.

ENVIRONMENT

     MANPATH  The standard search path used by man(1) may be overridden by
              specifying a path in the MANPATH environment variable.

FILES

     whatis.db      name of the whatis database
     /etc/man.conf  default man(1) configuration file

SEE ALSO

     apropos(1), man(1), whereis(1), which(1), man.conf(5), makewhatis(8)

HISTORY

     The whatis command appeared in 3.0BSD.

MirBSD #10-current               June 6, 1993                                1