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@(#)apropos.1 8.1 (Berkeley) 6/29/93
.Dd May 7, 2009 .Dt APROPOS 1 .Os .Sh NAME .Nm apropos .Nd locate commands by keyword lookup .Sh SYNOPSIS .Nm apropos .Op Fl C Ar path .Op Fl M Ar path .Op Fl m Ar path .Op Fl S Ar subsection .Op Fl s Ar section .Ar keyword ... .Sh DESCRIPTION .Nm shows which manual pages contain instances of any of the given .Ar keyword(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 .Dq compile , .Nm will also list all instances of .Dq compiler .
p If the line output by .Nm starts .Dq Li name(section) ... you can enter .Dq Li man section name to get its documentation.
p The options are as follows: l -tag -width flag t Fl C Use different .Xr man 1 configuration file than the default,
a /etc/man.conf . t Fl M Override the list of standard directories .Nm searches for a database named
a whatis.db . The supplied .Ar path must be a colon .Dq : separated list of directories. This search path may also be set using the environment variable .Ev MANPATH . t Fl m Augment the list of standard directories .Nm searches for its database. The supplied .Ar path must be a colon .Dq : separated list of directories. These directories will be searched before the standard directories, or the directories supplied with the .Fl M option or the .Ev MANPATH environment variable. t Fl S Ar subsection Restrict the search to pages for the specified machine architecture. By default, pages for all architectures are shown. t Fl s Ar section Restrict the search to the specified section of the manual. By default, pages from all sections are shown. .El .Sh ENVIRONMENT l -tag -width MANPATH t Ev MANPATH The standard search path used by .Xr man 1 may be overridden by specifying a path in the .Ev MANPATH environment variable. The format of the path is a colon .Dq : separated list of directories. .El .Sh FILES l -tag -width /etc/man.conf1 -compact t Pa whatis.db name of the apropos database t Pa /etc/man.conf .Xr man 1 configuration file, used to get location of whatis database if .Ev MANPATH is not set. .El .Sh SEE ALSO .Xr man 1 , .Xr whatis 1 , .Xr whereis 1 , .Xr man.conf 5 , .Xr makewhatis 8 .Sh HISTORY The .Nm command appeared in x 3.0 .