APROPOS(1)                 OpenBSD Reference Manual                 APROPOS(1)

NAME
     apropos - locate commands by keyword lookup

SYNOPSIS
     apropos [-C file] [-M path] [-m path] [-S subsection] [-s section]
             keyword ...

DESCRIPTION
     apropos shows which manual pages contain instances of any of the given
     keyword(s) in their title line.  Each word is considered separately and
     case of letters is ignored.  Words which are part of other words are con-
     sidered; when looking for ``compile'', apropos will also list all in-
     stances of ``compiler''.

     If the line output by apropos starts ``name (section) ...'', you can en-
     ter ``man section name'' to get its documentation.

     The options are as follows:

     -C file  Specify an alternative configuration file in man.conf(5) format.

     -M path  Override the list of standard directories apropos searches for a
              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 apropos searches for
              its database.  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.

     -S subsection
              Restrict the search to pages for the specified machine architec-
              ture.  By default, pages for all architectures are shown.

     -s section
              Restrict the search to the specified section of the manual.  By
              default, pages from all sections are shown.

ENVIRONMENT
     MANPATH  The standard search path used by man(1) may be overridden by
              specifying a path in the MANPATH environment variable.  The for-
              mat of the path is a colon (`:') separated list of directories.

FILES
     whatis.db      name of the apropos database
     /etc/man.conf  default man(1) configuration file

SEE ALSO
     man(1), whatis(1), whereis(1), man.conf(5), makewhatis(8)

HISTORY
     The apropos command appeared in 3.0BSD.

OpenBSD 4.7                    December 24, 2008                             1
