NAME

whatis − Describes a command’s function

SYNOPSIS

whatis [-M pathname] keyword ... 

The whatis command looks up a keyword, which may be a command, system call, library function, or special filename and displays the NAME line from the reference page.  You can then issue the man command to display additional information. 

FLAGS

-M pathname
Specifies an alternative search path.  The search path is a list of directories, separated by : (colons), in which whatis expects to find the standard manual subdirectories.  (For more information, see the man command.) 

DESCRIPTION

The whatis command is equivalent to the man command with the -f flag. 

EXAMPLES

To find out what function the ls command performs, enter:

whatis ls

FILES

/usr/share/man/whatis
Keyword database.

/usr/lbin/mkwhatisCreates the whatis keyword database. 

/usr/lbin/getNAMEUsed by mkwhatis to extract keywords from the manuals. 

RELATED INFORMATION

Commands:  apropos(1), man(1), catman(8).