WHATIS(1) OpenBSD Reference Manual WHATIS(1)NAMEwhatis - describe what a command is
SYNOPSISwhatis [-C file] [-M path] [-m path] command ...
DESCRIPTIONwhatis 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 ALSOapropos(1), man(1), whereis(1), which(1), man.conf(5), makewhatis(8)HISTORY
The whatis command appeared in 3.0BSD.
OpenBSD 4.9 August 6, 2007 OpenBSD 4.9