whatis.1

   1 .\"     $Id: whatis.1,v 1.3 2011/11/29 10:59:19 kristaps Exp $
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   3 .\" Copyright (c) 2011 Kristaps Dzonsons <kristaps@bsd.lv>
   4 .\"
   5 .\" Permission to use, copy, modify, and distribute this software for any
   6 .\" purpose with or without fee is hereby granted, provided that the above
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   9 .\" THE SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED "AS IS" AND THE AUTHOR DISCLAIMS ALL WARRANTIES
  10 .\" WITH REGARD TO THIS SOFTWARE INCLUDING ALL IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF
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  17 .Dd $Mdocdate: November 29 2011 $
  18 .Dt WHATIS 1
  19 .Os
  20 .Sh NAME
  21 .Nm whatis
  22 .Nd search manual page databases
  23 .Sh SYNOPSIS
  24 .Nm
  25 .Op Fl M Ar manpath
  26 .Op Fl m Ar manpath
  27 .Op Fl S Ar arch
  28 .Op Fl s Ar section
  29 .Ar term...
  30 .Sh DESCRIPTION
  31 The
  32 .Nm
  33 utility searches for manuals named or described with
  34 .Ar term
  35 in manual page databases generated by
  36 .Xr mandocdb 8 .
  37 Its arguments are as follows:
  38 .Bl -tag -width Ds
  39 .It Fl M Ar manpath
  40 Use the colon-separated path instead of the default list of paths
  41 searched for
  42 .Xr mandocdb 8
  43 databases.
  44 Invalid paths, or paths without manual databases, are ignored.
  45 .It Fl m Ar manpath
  46 Prepend the colon-separated paths to the list of paths searched
  47 for
  48 .Xr mandocdb 8
  49 databases.
  50 Invalid paths, or paths without manual databases, are ignored.
  51 .It Fl S Ar arch
  52 Search only for a particular architecture.
  53 .It Fl s Ar cat
  54 Search only for a manual section.
  55 See
  56 .Xr man 1
  57 for a listing of manual sections.
  58 .El
  59 .Pp
  60 By default,
  61 .Nm
  62 searches for
  63 .Xr mandocdb 8
  64 databases in the default paths stipulated by
  65 .Xr man 1 .
  66 Results are sorted by manual title, with output formatted as
  67 .Pp
  68 .D1 title(sec) \- description
  69 .Pp
  70 Where
  71 .Qq title
  72 is the manual's title (note multiple manual names may exist for one
  73 title),
  74 .Qq sec
  75 is the manual section, and
  76 .Qq description
  77 is the manual's short description.
  78 If an architecture is specified for the manual, it is displayed as
  79 .Pp
  80 .D1 title(cat/arch) \- description
  81 .Pp
  82 Resulting manuals may be accessed as
  83 .Pp
  84 .Dl $ man \-s sec title
  85 .Pp
  86 If an architecture is specified in the output, use
  87 .Pp
  88 .Dl $ man \-s sec \-S arch title
  89 .Pp
  90 .Nm
  91 is identical to running
  92 .Xr apropos 1
  93 as follows:
  94 .Pp
  95 .Dl $ apropos -- -i 'Nm~[[:<:]]term[[:>:]]'
  96 .Sh ENVIRONMENT
  97 .Bl -tag -width Ds
  98 .It Ev MANPATH
  99 Colon-separated paths overriding the default list of paths searched for
 100 manual databases.
 101 Invalid paths, or paths without manual databases, are ignored.
 102 Overridden by
 103 .Fl M .
 104 .El
 105 .\" .Sh FILES
 106 .Sh EXIT STATUS
 107 .Ex -std
 108 .Sh SEE ALSO
 109 .Xr apropos 1 ,
 110 .Xr man 1 ,
 111 .Xr mandocdb 8
 112 .Sh AUTHORS
 113 The
 114 .Nm
 115 utility was written by
 116 .An Kristaps Dzonsons ,
 117 .Mt kristaps@bsd.lv .