apropos Command

Purpose

Locates commands by keyword lookup.

Syntax

apropos [ -M PathName ] Keyword ...

Description

The apropos command shows the manual sections that contain any of the keywords specified by the Keyword parameter in their title. The apropos command considers each word separately and does not take into account if a letter is in uppercase or lowercase. Words that are part of other words are also displayed. For example, when looking for the word compile, the apropos command also finds all instances of the word compiler. The database containing the keywords is /usr/share/man/whatis, which must first be generated with the catman -w command.

If the output of the apropos command begins with a name and section number, you can enter man Section Title. For example, if the output of the apropos command is printf(3), you can enter man 3 printf to obtain the manual page on the printf subroutine.

The apropos command is equivalent to using the man command with the -k option.

Note: When the /usr/share/man/whatis database is built from the HTML library using the catman -w command, section 3 is equivalent to section 2 or 3. See the man command for further explanation of sections.

Flag

Item	Description
-M PathName	Specifies an alternative search path. The search path is specified by the PathName parameter, and is a colon-separated list of directories.

Examples

To find the manual sections that contain the word password in their titles, enter:
```
apropos password
```
To find the manual sections that contain the word editor in their titles, enter:
```
apropos editor
```

File

Item	Description
/usr/share/man/whatis	Contains the whatis database.