whatis(1bsd)

whatis -- (BSD) display a one-line summary about a keyword

Synopsis

/usr/ucb/whatis command . . .

Description

whatis looks up given command(s) in the keyword database and displays the corresponding manual page name, section, and a short description of each. You can then view a manual page using man(1).

whatis is case insensitive, but you must give the full name of the command.

whatis sorts its output alphabetically by command name.

whatis is equivalent to running man(1) with the -f or -e option.

The system administrator can add local manual pages to the keyword database using makewhatis(1M).

Files

/usr/lib/scohelp/LANG/man/.SectionData/whatis/section: individual section keyword databases
/usr/lib/scohelp/LANG/man/whatis: master merged keyword database used by whatis

Examples

To display a description of the tail(1) command, use whatis tail:

   tail (1)                - deliver the last part of a file

If the output of whatis begins with file(section), you can display the man page by entering:

   man section file

For example, when you run whatis ed, you see:

   ed, red (1)             - text editor

Enter man 1 ed to display the manual page for the ed(1).

References

apropos(1bsd), catman(1Mbsd), makewhatis(1M), man(1), whatis(4)