WHATIS(1) General Commands Manual WHATIS(1)
NAME
whatisdescribe 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 directories will be searched before the standard directories or the directories supplied with the -M option or the MANPATH environment 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
HISTORY
The whatis command appeared in 3.0BSD.