date and time created 94/04/13 10:27:13 by eric

[unix-history] / usr / src / usr.bin / apropos / apropos.1

.\" Copyright (c) 1989, 1990, 1993
.\"	The Regents of the University of California.  All rights reserved.
.\"
.\" %sccs.include.redist.roff%
.\"
.\"	@(#)apropos.1	8.1 (Berkeley) %G%
.\"
.Dd 
.Dt APROPOS 1
.Os
.Sh NAME
.Nm apropos
.Nd locate commands by keyword lookup
.Sh SYNOPSIS
.Nm apropos
.Op Fl M Ar path
.Op Fl m Ar path
.Ar keyword ...
.Sh DESCRIPTION
.Nm Apropos
shows which manual pages contain instances of any of the given
.Ar keyword(s)
in their title line.
Each word is considered separately and case of letters is ignored.
Words which are part of other words are considered; when looking for
.Dq compile ,
.Nm apropos
will also list all instances of
.Dq compiler .
.Pp
If the line output by
.Nm apropos
starts
.Dq Li name(section) ...
you can enter
.Dq Li man section name
to get
its documentation.
.Pp
The options are as follows:
.Bl -tag -width flag
.It Fl M
Override the list of standard directories
.Nm apropos
searches for a database named
.Pa whatis.db .
The supplied
.Ar path
must be a colon
.Dq \&:
separated list of directories.
This search path may also be set using the environment variable
.Ev MANPATH .
.It Fl m
Augment the list of standard directories
.Nm apropos
searches for its database.
The supplied
.Ar path
must be a colon
.Dq \&:
separated list of directories.
These directories will be searched before the standard directories,
or the directories supplied with the
.Fl M
option or the
.Ev MANPATH
environment variable.
.Sh ENVIRONMENT
.Bl -tag -width MANPATH
.It Ev MANPATH
The standard search path used by
.Xr man 1
may be overridden by specifying a path in the
.Ev MANPATH
environment variable.
The format of the path is a colon
.Dq \&:
separated list of directories.
.El
.Sh FILES
.Bl -tag -width whatis.db -compact
.It Pa whatis.db
name of the apropos database
.El
.Sh SEE ALSO
.Xr man 1 ,
.Xr whatis 1 ,
.Xr whereis 1
.Sh HISTORY
The
.Nm apropos
command appeared in
.Bx 3.0 .