makewhatis(1M)

makewhatis -- add entries to the keyword database

Synopsis

/usr/man/bin/makewhatis directory ...

Description

makewhatis writes entries for local manual pages to a keyword database in whatis(4) format. A keyword database file can be used by the utilities man(1), apropos(1bsd), and whatis(1bsd).

Only root can use makewhatis.

makewhatis looks in the specified directory(s) for the troff source of the manual pages to add. The directories must be subdirectories of the standard root for manual pages /usr/lib/scohelp/LANG/man (/usr/lib/scohelp/en_US.ISO8859-1/man is linked to /usr/man for compatibility with SCO OpenServer (TM) ). This path can be changed using the MANPATH environment variable.

Each entry in whatis consists of a line specifying a manual page name, its section, and a short description. makewhatis uses troff source that must contain the following standard man key lines in this order:

   .TH name section
   .SH NAME
   name \- single-line description

makewhatis is flexible in what it accepts in the manual page source:

The case of the string ``NAME'' is arbitrary.
The amount of whitespace between the elements of a key line is arbitrary as long as there is some.
There can be any number of blank or non-blank lines between the key lines.
The dash separating the manual page name and its description can be one of ``'', ``'', ``\'', ``\\'', ``\(mi'', or ``\(em''.

For example, the source for this manual page might look like:

   .TH	makewhatis 1M
   .\" Note the mixed case of NAME below
   .SH NaMe
   .\" This comment line is ignored
   makewhatis 	\ add entries to the keyword database
   .
   .
   .

This produces the following keyword database entry:

   makewhatis (1M)	- add entries to the keyword database

Files

/usr/lib/scohelp/LANG/man/.SectionData/whatis/section: keyword databases
/usr/lib/scohelp/LANG/man: root of the standard manual page directory subtree (/usr/lib/scohelp/en_US.ISO8859-1/man is linked to /usr/man for compatibility with SCO OpenServer)
/usr/lib/scohelp/LANG/man/man.section/*: man macro source files (unformatted) for manual pages

References

apropos(1bsd), man(1), whatis(1bsd), whatis(4)