1MAKEWHATIS(8) BSD System Manager's Manual MAKEWHATIS(8)
2
4 makewhatis — index UNIX manuals
5
7 makewhatis [-aDnpQ] [-T utf8] [-C file]
8 makewhatis [-aDnpQ] [-T utf8] dir ...
9 makewhatis [-DnpQ] [-T utf8] -d dir [file ...]
10 makewhatis [-Dnp] [-T utf8] -u dir [file ...]
11 makewhatis [-DQ] -t file ...
12
14 The makewhatis utility extracts keywords from UNIX manuals and indexes
15 them in a database for fast retrieval by apropos(1), whatis(1), and
16 man(1)'s -k option.
17 By default, makewhatis creates a database in each dir using the files
19 mansection/[arch/]title.section and catsection/[arch/]title.0 in that
20 directory. Existing databases are replaced. If a directory contains no
21 manual pages, no database is created in that directory. If dir is not
22 provided, makewhatis uses the default paths stipulated by man.conf(5).
23 The arguments are as follows:
25 -a Use all directories and files found below dir ....
27 -C file Specify an alternative configuration file in man.conf(5) format.
29 -D Display all files added or removed to the index. With a second
31 -D, also show all keywords added for each file.
32 -d dir Merge (remove and re-add) file ... to the database in dir.
34 -n Do not create or modify any database; scan and parse only, and
36 print manual page names and descriptions to standard output.
37 -p Print warnings about potential problems with manual pages to the
39 standard error output.
40 -Q Quickly build reduced-size databases by reading only the NAME
42 sections of manuals. The resulting databases will usually con‐
43 tain names and descriptions only.
44 -T utf8 Use UTF-8 encoding instead of ASCII for strings stored in the
46 databases.
47 -t file ...
49 Check the given files for potential problems. Implies -a, -n,
50 and -p. All diagnostic messages are printed to the standard
51 output; the standard error output is not used.
52 -u dir Remove file ... from the database in dir. If that causes the
54 database to become empty, also delete the database file.
55 If fatal parse errors are encountered while parsing, the offending file
57 is printed to stderr, omitted from the index, and the parse continues
58 with the next input file.
59
61 MANPATH A colon-separated list of directories to create databases in.
62 Ignored if a dir argument or the -t option is specified.
63
65 mandoc.db
66 A database of manpages relative to the directory of the file.
67 This file is portable across architectures and systems, so long
68 as the manpage hierarchy it indexes does not change.
69 /etc/man.conf
71 The default man(1) configuration file.
72
74 The makewhatis utility exits with one of the following values:
75 0 No errors occurred.
77 5 Invalid command line arguments were specified. No input files
78 have been read.
79 6 An operating system error occurred, for example memory exhaustion
80 or an error accessing input files. Such errors cause makewhatis
81 to exit at once, possibly in the middle of parsing or formatting
82 a file. The output databases are corrupt and should be removed.
83
85 apropos(1), man(1), whatis(1), man.conf(5)
86
88 A makewhatis utility first appeared in 2BSD. It was rewritten in perl(1)
89 for OpenBSD 2.7 and in C for OpenBSD 5.6.
90 The dir argument first appeared in NetBSD 1.0; the options -dpt in
92 OpenBSD 2.7; the option -u in OpenBSD 3.4; and the options -aCDnQT in
93 OpenBSD 5.6.
94
96 Bill Joy wrote the original BSD makewhatis in February 1979, Marc Espie
97 started the Perl version in 2000, and the current version of makewhatis
98 was written by Kristaps Dzonsons <kristaps@bsd.lv> and Ingo Schwarze
99 <schwarze@openbsd.org>.
100BSD June 20, 2019 BSD