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@(#)whatis.1 8.1 (Berkeley) 6/6/93
.Dd June 6, 1993 .Dt WHATIS 1 .Os .Sh NAME .Nm whatis .Nd describe what a command is .Sh SYNOPSIS .Nm .Op Fl C Ar path .Op Fl M Ar path .Op Fl m Ar path .Ar command Ar ... .Sh DESCRIPTION .Nm looks up a given command and gives the header line from the manual page. You can then use the .Xr man 1 command to get more information.
p The options are as follows: l -tag -width Fl t Fl C Ar path Use different .Xr man 1 configuration file than the default,
a /etc/man.conf . t Fl M Ar path Override the list of standard directories .Nm searches for its database named .Dq Pa 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 Ar path Augment the list of standard directories .Nm searches for its database named .Dq Pa whatis.db . 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 are searched. .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. .El .Sh FILES l -tag -compact -width /etc/man.conf1 t Pa whatis.db name of the whatis databases t Pa /etc/man.conf .Xr man 1 configuration file, used to get location of whatis databases if .Ev MANPATH is not set. .El .Sh SEE ALSO .Xr apropos 1 , .Xr man 1 , .Xr whereis 1 , .Xr man.conf 5 , .Xr makewhatis 8 .Sh HISTORY The .Nm command appeared in x 3.0 .