.\" Copyright (c) 1989, 1990, 1993
.\"	The Regents of the University of California.  All rights reserved.
.\"
.\" %sccs.include.redist.roff%
.\"
.\"     @(#)whatis.1	8.1 (Berkeley) 06/06/93
.\"
.Dd 
.Dt WHATIS 1
.Os BSD 4
.Sh NAME
.Nm whatis
.Nd describe what a command is
.Sh SYNOPSIS
.Nm whatis
.Op Fl M Ar path
.Op Fl m Ar path
.Ar command Ar ...
.Sh DESCRIPTION
.Nm Whatis
looks up a given command and gives the header line from the manual page.
You can then use the
.Xr man 1
command to get more information.
.Pp
The options are as follows:
.Bl -tag -width Fl
.It Fl M Ar path
Override the list of standard directories
.Nm whatis
searches for its database named
.Dq Pa whatis.db .
The supplied
.Ar path
must be a colon
.Dq \&:
separated list of directories.
This search path may also be set using the environment variable
.Ev MANPATH .
.It Fl m Ar path
Augment the list of standard directories
.Nm whatis
searches for its database named
.Dq Pa whatis.db .
The supplied
.Ar path
must be a colon
.Dq \&:
separated list of directories.
These directories will be searched before the standard directories
or the directories supplied with the
.Fl M
option or the
.Ev MANPATH
environment variable are searched.
.El
.Sh ENVIRONMENT
.Bl -tag -width MANPATH
.It Ev MANPATH
The standard search path used by
.Xr man 1
may be overridden by specifying a path in the
.Ev MANPATH
environment variable.
.El
.Sh FILES
.Bl -tag -width whatis.db
.It Pa whatis.db
name of the whatis database
.El
.Sh SEE ALSO
.Xr apropos 1 ,
.Xr man 1 ,
.Xr whereis 1
.Sh HISTORY
The
.Nm
command appeared in
.Bx 3.0 .