WHATIS(1)               NetBSD General Commands Manual               WHATIS(1)

NAME
     whatis -- describe what a command is

SYNOPSIS
     whatis [-C path] [-M path] [-m path] command ...

DESCRIPTION
     whatis looks up a given command and gives the header line from the manual
     page.  You can then use the man(1) command to get more information.

     The options are as follows:

     -C path     Use different man(1) configuration file than the default,
                 /etc/man.conf.

     -M path     Override the list of standard directories whatis searches for
                 its database named ``whatis.db''.  The supplied path must be
                 a colon ``:'' separated list of directories.  This search
                 path may also be set using the environment variable MANPATH.

     -m path     Augment the list of standard directories whatis searches for
                 its database named ``whatis.db''.  The supplied path must be
                 a colon ``:'' separated list of directories.  These directo-
                 ries will be searched before the standard directories or the
                 directories supplied with the -M option or the MANPATH envi-
                 ronment variable are searched.

ENVIRONMENT
     MANPATH  The standard search path used by man(1) may be overridden by
              specifying a path in the MANPATH environment variable.

FILES
     whatis.db       name of the whatis databases
     /etc/man.conf   man(1) configuration file, used to get location of whatis
                     databases if MANPATH is not set.

SEE ALSO
     apropos(1), man(1), whereis(1), man.conf(5), makewhatis(8)

HISTORY
     The whatis command appeared in 3.0BSD.

NetBSD 5.0_STABLE                June 6, 1993                NetBSD 5.0_STABLE
