1WHATIS(1)                     Manual pager utils                     WHATIS(1)
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NAME

6       whatis - display one-line manual page descriptions
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SYNOPSIS

9       whatis  [-dlv?V]  [-r|-w]  [-s  list]  [-m  system[,...]] [-M path] [-L
10       locale] [-C file] name ...
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DESCRIPTION

13       Each manual page has a short description available within  it.   whatis
14       searches  the  manual  page names and displays the manual page descrip‐
15       tions of any name matched.
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17       name may contain wildcards (-w) or be a regular expression (-r).  Using
18       these  options, it may be necessary to quote the name or escape (\) the
19       special characters to stop the shell from interpreting them.
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21       index databases are used during the search,  and  are  updated  by  the
22       mandb  program.   Depending  on your installation, this may be run by a
23       periodic cron job, or may need to be  run  manually  after  new  manual
24       pages  have  been installed.  To produce an old style text whatis data‐
25       base from the relative index database, issue the command:
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27       whatis -M manpath -w '*' | sort > manpath/whatis
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29       where manpath is a manual page hierarchy such as /usr/man.
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OPTIONS

32       -d, --debug
33              Print debugging information.
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35       -v, --verbose
36              Print verbose warning messages.
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38       -r, --regex
39              Interpret each name as a regular expression.  If a name  matches
40              any  part  of  a  page  name, a match will be made.  This option
41              causes whatis to be somewhat slower due to the nature  of  data‐
42              base searches.
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44       -w, --wildcard
45              Interpret  each  name  as a pattern containing shell style wild‐
46              cards.  For a match to be made, an expanded name must match  the
47              entire  page  name.   This  option  causes whatis to be somewhat
48              slower due to the nature of database searches.
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50       -l, --long
51              Do not trim output to the terminal width.  Normally, output will
52              be  truncated  to  the terminal width to avoid ugly results from
53              poorly-written NAME sections.
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55       -s list, --sections=list, --section=list
56              Search only the given manual sections.   list  is  a  colon-  or
57              comma-separated list of sections.  If an entry in list is a sim‐
58              ple section,  for  example  "3",  then  the  displayed  list  of
59              descriptions  will include pages in sections "3", "3perl", "3x",
60              and so on; while if an entry in list has an extension, for exam‐
61              ple "3perl", then the list will only include pages in that exact
62              part of the manual section.
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64       -m system[,...], --systems=system[,...]
65              If this system has access to  other  operating  system's  manual
66              page  names,  they can be accessed using this option.  To search
67              NewOS's manual page names, use the option -m NewOS.
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69              The system specified can be a  combination  of  comma  delimited
70              operating system names.  To include a search of the native oper‐
71              ating system's manual page names, include the system name man in
72              the  argument  string.   This  option  will override the $SYSTEM
73              environment variable.
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75       -M path, --manpath=path
76              Specify an alternate set of colon-delimited manual page  hierar‐
77              chies  to search.  By default, whatis uses the $MANPATH environ‐
78              ment variable, unless it is empty or unset,  in  which  case  it
79              will  determine an appropriate manpath based on your $PATH envi‐
80              ronment variable.  This option overrides the contents  of  $MAN‐
81              PATH.
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83       -L locale, --locale=locale
84              whatis  will normally determine your current locale by a call to
85              the C function setlocale(3) which interrogates various  environ‐
86              ment  variables,  possibly including $LC_MESSAGES and $LANG.  To
87              temporarily override the determined value, use  this  option  to
88              supply  a  locale  string directly to whatis.  Note that it will
89              not take effect until the  search  for  pages  actually  begins.
90              Output  such as the help message will always be displayed in the
91              initially determined locale.
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93       -C file, --config-file=file
94              Use this user configuration file  rather  than  the  default  of
95              ~/.manpath.
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97       -?, --help
98              Print a help message and exit.
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100       --usage
101              Print a short usage message and exit.
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103       -V, --version
104              Display version information.
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EXIT STATUS

107       0      Successful program execution.
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109       1      Usage, syntax or configuration file error.
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111       2      Operational error.
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113       16     Nothing was found that matched the criteria specified.
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ENVIRONMENT

116       SYSTEM If  $SYSTEM  is  set,  it will have the same effect as if it had
117              been specified as the argument to the -m option.
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119       MANPATH
120              If $MANPATH is set, its value is interpreted as the colon-delim‐
121              ited manual page hierarchy search path to use.
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123       MANWIDTH
124              If  $MANWIDTH  is  set,  its value is used as the terminal width
125              (see the --long option).  If it is not set, the  terminal  width
126              will  be calculated using the value of $COLUMNS, and ioctl(2) if
127              available, or falling back to 80 characters if all else fails.
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FILES

130       /usr/share/man/index.(bt|db|dir|pag)
131              A traditional global index database cache.
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133       /var/cache/man/index.(bt|db|dir|pag)
134              An FHS compliant global index database cache.
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136       /usr/share/man/.../whatis
137              A traditional whatis text database.
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SEE ALSO

140       apropos(1), man(1), mandb(8)
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AUTHOR

143       Wilf. (G.Wilford@ee.surrey.ac.uk).
144       Fabrizio Polacco (fpolacco@debian.org).
145       Colin Watson (cjwatson@debian.org).
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1492.9.0                             2019-10-23                         WHATIS(1)
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