apropos(1)
NAME
apropos − locate commands by keyword lookup
SYNOPSIS
apropos keyword...
AVAILABILITY
SUNWdoc
DESCRIPTION
apropos displays the man page name, section number, and a short description for each man page whose NAME line contains keyword. This information is contained in the /usr/share/man/windex database created by catman(1M). If catman(1M) was not run, or was run with the −n option, apropos fails. Each word is considered separately and the case of letters is ignored. Words which are part of other words are considered; for example, when looking for ‘compile’, apropos finds all instances of ‘compiler’ also.
apropos is actually just the −k option to the man(1) command.
Try
example% apropos password
and
example% apropos editor
If the line starts ‘filename(section) ...’ you can do ‘man −s section filename’ to display the man page for filename. Try
example% apropos format
and then
example% man −s 3s printf
to get the manual page on the subroutine printf().
FILES
/usr/share/man/windex table of contents and keyword database
SEE ALSO
DIAGNOSTICS
/usr/share/man/windex: No such file or directory
This database does not exist. catman(1M) must be run to create it.
SunOS 5.5/SPARC — Last change: 14 Sep 1992