usr/src/usr.bin/man/whatis/whatis.1

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.\" Copyright (c) 1990 The Regents of the University of California.
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.\"     @(#)whatis.1    6.7 (Berkeley) 6/24/90
.\"
.TH WHATIS 1 "%Q"
.UC 4
.SH NAME
whatis \- describe what a command is
.SH SYNOPSIS
.nf
.ft B
whatis [-M path] [-m path] command ...
.ft R
.fi
.SH DESCRIPTION
.I Whatis
looks up a given command and gives the header line from the manual page.
You can then use the
.IR man (1)
command to get more information.
.PP
The options are as follows:
.TP
.I M
Override the list of standard directories where
.I whatis
searches for its database named ``whatis.db''.
The supplied
.I path
must be a colon (``:'') separated list of directories.
This search path may also be set using the environment variable
.IR MANPATH .
.TP
.I m
Augment the list of standard directories where
.I whatis
searches for its database named ``whatis.db''.
The supplied
.I path
must be a colon (``:'') separated list of directories.
These directories will be searched before the standard directories
or the directories supplied with the
.I M
option or the
.I MANPATH
environment variable are searched.
.SH ENVIRONMENT
.TP
.I MANPATH
The standard search path used by
.I man
may be overridden by specifying a path in the
.I MANPATH
environment variable.
The format of the path is a colon (``:'') separated list of directories.
.SH FILES
whatis.db               name of the whatis database
.SH "SEE ALSO"
apropos(1), man(1), whereis(1)