1.\" Copyright (c) 1989, 1990, 1993 2.\" The Regents of the University of California. All rights reserved. 3.\" 4.\" %sccs.include.redist.roff% 5.\" 6.\" @(#)whatis.1 8.1 (Berkeley) 06/06/93 7.\" 8.Dd 9.Dt WHATIS 1 10.Os BSD 4 11.Sh NAME 12.Nm whatis 13.Nd describe what a command is 14.Sh SYNOPSIS 15.Nm whatis 16.Op Fl M Ar path 17.Op Fl m Ar path 18.Ar command Ar ... 19.Sh DESCRIPTION 20.Nm Whatis 21looks up a given command and gives the header line from the manual page. 22You can then use the 23.Xr man 1 24command to get more information. 25.Pp 26The options are as follows: 27.Bl -tag -width Fl 28.It Fl M Ar path 29Override the list of standard directories 30.Nm whatis 31searches for its database named 32.Dq Pa whatis.db . 33The supplied 34.Ar path 35must be a colon 36.Dq \&: 37separated list of directories. 38This search path may also be set using the environment variable 39.Ev MANPATH . 40.It Fl m Ar path 41Augment the list of standard directories 42.Nm whatis 43searches for its database named 44.Dq Pa whatis.db . 45The supplied 46.Ar path 47must be a colon 48.Dq \&: 49separated list of directories. 50These directories will be searched before the standard directories 51or the directories supplied with the 52.Fl M 53option or the 54.Ev MANPATH 55environment variable are searched. 56.El 57.Sh ENVIRONMENT 58.Bl -tag -width MANPATH 59.It Ev MANPATH 60The standard search path used by 61.Xr man 1 62may be overridden by specifying a path in the 63.Ev MANPATH 64environment variable. 65.El 66.Sh FILES 67.Bl -tag -width whatis.db 68.It Pa whatis.db 69name of the whatis database 70.El 71.Sh SEE ALSO 72.Xr apropos 1 , 73.Xr man 1 , 74.Xr whereis 1 75.Sh HISTORY 76The 77.Nm 78command appeared in 79.Bx 3.0 . 80