whatis(1bsd)
whatis --
(BSD) display a one-line summary about a keyword
Synopsis
/usr/ucb/whatis command . . .
Description
whatis looks up given command(s)
in the keyword database and displays the corresponding manual
page name, section, and a short description of each.
You can then view a manual page using
man(1).
whatis is case insensitive, but you must give
the full name of the command.
whatis sorts its output alphabetically by command name.
whatis is equivalent to running
man(1)
with the -f or -e option.
The system administrator can add local manual pages to the
keyword database using
makewhatis(1M).
Files
/usr/lib/scohelp/LANG/man/.SectionData/whatis/section-
individual section keyword databases
/usr/lib/scohelp/LANG/man/whatis-
master merged keyword database used by whatis
Examples
To display a description of the
tail(1)
command, use whatis tail:
tail (1) - deliver the last part of a file
If the output of whatis begins with
file(section),
you can display the man page by entering:
man section file
For example, when you run whatis ed,
you see:
ed, red (1) - text editor
Enter man 1 ed to display the manual page for the
ed(1).
References
apropos(1bsd),
catman(1Mbsd),
makewhatis(1M),
man(1),
whatis(4)
© 2004 The SCO Group, Inc. All rights reserved.
UnixWare 7 Release 7.1.4 - 25 April 2004