WHATIS

Section: Misc. Reference Manual Pages (1 )
Index Return to Main Contents
 

NAME

whatis - show description of word  

SYNOPSIS

whatis [ -l ] [ -P path ] [ -s section ] word...  

DESCRIPTION

The whatis command displays a one line synopsis of each online documentation file whose name matches the specified word. To read the actual online documentation, use the man(1) command.

Word is considered separately from each other word. The case of letters is significant.  

OPTIONS

The following switch options are recognized:
-l
a more verbose (long) output is given containing the one line description plus a list of keywords, cross references, and the primary manual page, if any.
-P path
if a valid path is given, whatis searches for the databases there (see ENVIRONMENT).
-s section
search only for items from the specified section. This should be a single character representing a section of the manual, i.e., from the list:
        0123456789lno
 

ENVIRONMENT

Whatis searches for the database file in the directory contained in the MANPATH environment variable. Note that the -P option overrides this. If neither MANPATH or -P are specified, a default path of ``d:/usr/man'' is used.  

FILES

MANPATH/whatis._?_      online documentation database file
 

SEE ALSO

apropos(1), man(1), whatisin(1), whereis(1)  

AUTHOR

Bill Rosenkranz
rosenkra@convex.com  

VERSION

whatis v2.0.1 92/9/12 rosenkra


 

Index

NAME
SYNOPSIS
DESCRIPTION
OPTIONS
ENVIRONMENT
FILES
SEE ALSO
AUTHOR
VERSION

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Time: 03:58:28 GMT, September 10, 2022