WHATIS(1)                  OpenBSD Reference Manual                  WHATIS(1)

NAME
     whatis - describe what a command is

SYNOPSIS
     whatis [-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.
     whatis will match on a case insensitive basis and for multiple word en-
     tries will match on each individual word.

     The options are as follows:

     -C file     Specify an alternate configuration file in man.conf(5) for-
                 mat.  The default is /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 directo-
                 ries supplied with the -M option or the MANPATH environment
                 variable are searched.

ENVIRONMENT
     The following environment variables affect the execution of whatis:

     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 database

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

HISTORY
     The whatis command appeared in 3.0BSD.

OpenBSD 2.8                      June 6, 1993                                1
