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) format.
             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 directories sup-
             plied 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 database

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

HISTORY
     The whatis command appeared in 3.0BSD.

OpenBSD 3.0                      June 6, 1993                                1
