whatis(1) - NetBSD Manual Pages

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WHATIS(1)               NetBSD General Commands Manual               WHATIS(1)


NAME
whatis -- describe what a command is
SYNOPSIS
whatis [-C path] [-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. The options are as follows: -C path Use different man(1) configuration file than the default, /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 directo- ries will be searched before the standard directories or the directories supplied with the -M option or the MANPATH envi- ronment 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 databases /etc/man.conf man(1) configuration file, used to get location of whatis databases if MANPATH is not set.
SEE ALSO
apropos(1), man(1), whereis(1), man.conf(5), makewhatis(8)
HISTORY
The whatis command appeared in 3.0BSD. NetBSD 4.0 June 6, 1993 NetBSD 4.0
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