WHATIS(1) Manual pager utils WHATIS(1) (NAME) whatis - (SYNOPSIS) whatis [-dlv?V] [-r|-w] [-s list] [-m system[,...]] [-M path] [-L locale] [-C file] name ... (DESCRIPTION) . whatis name . name (-w) (-r) . name (\) . index mandb . (cron job) . whatis index : whatis -M manpath -w '*' | sort > manpath/whatis manpath /usr/man . (OPTIONS) -d, --debug . -v, --verbose . -r, --regex name . name . whatis . -w, --wildcard name . name . whatis . -l, --long . NAME . -s list, --sections=list, --section=list . list . list ( "3") "3" "3perl" "3x" list ( "3perl") . -m system[,...], --systems=system[,...] . NewOS -m NewOS . system . man . $SYSTEM . -M path, --manpath=path . whatis $MANPATH manpath $PATH . $MANPATH . -L locale, --locale=locale whatis C setlocale(3) $LC_MESSAGES $LANG . locale whatis . . . -C file, --config-file=file ~/.manpath. -?, --help . --usage . -V, --version . (EXIT STATUS) 0 . 1 . 2 . 16 . (ENVIRONMENT) SYSTEM $SYSTEM -m . MANPATH $MANPATH ( ) . SEARCH PATH manpath(5) . MANWIDTH $MANWIDTH ( --long ). $COLUMNS ioctl(2) . (FILES) /usr/share/man/index.(bt|db|dir|pag) index. /var/cache/man/index.(bt|db|dir|pag) index FHS. /usr/share/man/.../whatis whatis. (SEE ALSO) apropos(1), man(1), mandb(8) (AUTHORS) Wilf. (G.Wilford@ee.surrey.ac.uk). Fabrizio Polacco (fpolacco@debian.org). Colin Watson (cjwatson@debian.org). (BUGS) https://gitlab.com/man-db/man-db/-/issues https://savannah.nongnu.org/bugs/?group=man-db 2.13.1 2025-05-02 WHATIS(1)