usr/src/usr.bin/apropos/apropos.1

.\" Copyright (c) 1980 Regents of the University of California.
.\" All rights reserved.  The Berkeley software License Agreement
.\" specifies the terms and conditions for redistribution.
.\"
.\"     @(#)apropos.1   6.5 (Berkeley) %G%
.\"
.TH APROPOS 1 ""
.AT 3
.SH NAME
apropos \- locate commands by keyword lookup
.SH SYNOPSIS
.B apropos
[
.B -M
.I path
]
keyword ...
.SH DESCRIPTION
\fIApropos\fP shows which manual pages contain instances of any of the given
\fIkeyword\fP(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 compile, \fIapropos\fP will also find all
instances of ``compiler''.
.PP
If the line output by \fIapropos\fP starts ``name(section) ...'' you can
enter ``man section name'' to get its documentation.
.PP
Normally \fIapropos\fP checks in a standard location (/usr/man) for its
database ``whatis''.  This can be changed by supplying a \fIpath\fP (a
la the Bourne shell) with the \fB-M\fP flag.  This search path must be
a colon (``:'') separated list of directories which \fIapropos\fP will
search for files named ``whatis''.  The path can also be set with the
environmental variable \fIMANPATH\fP.
.SH FILES
.DT
/usr/man/whatis         data base
.SH "SEE ALSO"
man(1), whatis(1)