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APROPOS

Section: User Commands (1)
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BSD mandoc

NAME

apropos whatis - search manual page databases

SYNOPSIS

[-afk ] [-C file ] [-M path ] [-m path ] [-O outkey ] [-S arch ] [-s section ] expression ...

DESCRIPTION

The apropos and whatis utilities query manual page databases generated by makewhatis(8), evaluating expression for each file in each database. By default, they display the names, section numbers, and description lines of all matching manuals.

By default, searches for makewhatis(8) databases in the default paths stipulated by man(1) and uses cas-insensitive extended regular expression matching over manual names and descriptions (the and - macro keys ) Multiple terms imply pairwise -o

whatis is a synonym for -f

The options are as follows:

-a: Instead of showing only the title lines, show the complete manual pages, just like man(1) -a would. If the standard output is a terminal device and -c is not specified, use less(1) to paginate them. In -a mode, the options -IKOTW described in the mandoc(1) manual are also available.
-C file: Specify an alternative configuration file in man.conf5 format.
-f: Search for all words in expression in manual page names only. The search is cas-insensitive and matches whole words only. In this mode, macro keys, comparison operators, and logical operators are not available.
-k: Support the full expression syntax. It is the default for .
-M path: Use the colo-separated path instead of the default list of paths searched for makewhatis(8) databases. Invalid paths, or paths without manual databases, are ignored.
-m path: Prepend the colo-separated paths to the list of paths searched for makewhatis(8) databases. Invalid paths, or paths without manual databases, are ignored.
-O outkey: Show the values associated with the key outkey instead of the manual descriptions.
-S arch: Restrict the search to pages for the specified machine(1) architecture. arch is cas-insensitive. 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. See man(1) for a listing of sections.

The options -chlw are also supported and are documented in man(1). The options -fkl are mutually exclusive and override each other.

An expression consists of search terms joined by logical operators -a (and) and -o (or) The -a operator has precedence over -o and both are evaluated lef-t-right.

( expr ): True if the subexpression expr is true.
expr1 -a expr2: True if both expr1 and expr2 are true (logical `and )'
expr1 [-o expr2 ]: True if expr1 and/or expr2 evaluate to true (logical `or )'
term: True if term is satisfied. This has syntax [[key [, key ... ] ] (= | ti ) ] val where key is an mdoc(7) macro to query and val is its value. See Sx Macro Keys for a list of available keys. Operator = evaluates a substring, while ti evaluates a cas-sensitive extended regular expression.
-i term: If term is a regular expression, it is evaluated cas-insensitively. Has no effect on substring terms.

Results are sorted first according to the section number in ascending numerical order, then by the page name in ascending ascii(7) alphabetical order, cas-insensitive.

Each output line is formatted as

Where ``name'' is the manual's name, ``sec'' is the manual section, and ``description'' is the manual's short description. If an architecture is specified for the manual, it is displayed as

Resulting manuals may be accessed as

$ man -s sec name

If an architecture is specified in the output, use

$ man -s sec -S arch name

Macro Keys

Queries evaluate over a subset of mdoc(7) macros indexed by makewhatis(8). In addition to the macro keys listed below, the special key any may be used to match any available macro key.

Names and description:

Ta manual name
- Ta on-line manual description
arch Ta machine architecture (cas-insensitive)
sec Ta manual section number

Sections and cross references:

Ta section header (excluding standard sections)

Li Ss Ta subsection header Li Xr Ta cross reference to another manual page Li Rs Ta bibliographic reference

Semantic markup for command line utilities:

-Ta command line options (flags)
Ta command modifier
Ta command argument
Ta internal or interactive command
Ta environmental variable
Ta file system path

Semantic markup for function libraries:

Lb Ta function library name
In Ta include file
Ft Ta function return type
Fn Ta function name
Fa Ta function argument type and name
Vt Ta variable type
Ta variable name
Ta defined variable or preprocessor constant
Er Ta error constant
Ta environmental variable

Various semantic markup:

An Ta author name
Lk Ta hyperlink
Mt Ta Do mailto Dc hyperlink
Ta kernel configuration declaration
Ta mathematical symbol
Ta tradename

Physical markup:

Ta italic font or underline
Ta boldface font
Ta typewriter font

Text production:

St Ta reference to a standards document
AT&T System Ta AT&T System version reference
BSD Ta BSD version reference
Bsx Ta Bsx version reference
Nx Ta Nx version reference
Fx Ta Fx version reference
Ox Ta Ox version reference
Dx Ta Dx version reference

In general, macro keys are supposed to yield complete results without expecting the user to consider actual macro usage. For example, results include:

Fa function arguments appearing on: Fn lines
Fn function names marked up with: Fo macros
In include file names marked up with: Fd macros
Vt types appearing as function return types and
: types appearing in function arguments in the SYNOPSIS

ENVIRONMENT

MANPAGER: Any no-empty value of the environment variable MANPAGER is used instead of the standard pagination program, less(1); see man(1) for details. Only used if -a or -l is specified.
MANPATH: A colo-separated list of directories to search for manual pages; see man(1) for details. Overridden by -M ignored if -l is specified.
PAGER: Specifies the pagination program to use when MANPAGER is not defined. If neither PAGER nor MANPAGER is defined, less(1) is used. Only used if -a or -l is specified.

FILES

mandoc.db: name of the makewhatis(8) keyword database
/etc/man.conf: default man(1) configuration file

EXIT STATUS

Ex -std

EXAMPLES

Search for Qq .cf as a substring of manual names and descriptions:

$ apropos =.cf

Include matches for Qq .cnf and Qq .conf as well:

$ apropos =.cf =.cnf =.conf

Search in names and descriptions using a cas-sensitive regular expression:

$ apropos aqtiset.?[ug]idaq

Search for all manual pages in a given section:

$ apropos -s 9 .

Search for manuals in the library section mentioning both the Qq optind and the Qq optarg variables:

$ apropos -s 3 Va=optind -a Va=optarg

Do exactly the same as calling whatis with the argument Qq ssh :

$ apropos -- -i aqNmti[[:<:]]ssh[[:>:]]aq

The following two invocations are equivalent:

$ apropos ( expression ) -a archti^( arch |any)$ -a secti^ section $

STANDARDS

The utility is compliant with the St -p1003.-2008 specification of man(1) -k

All options, the whatis command, support for logical operators, macro keys, substring matching, sorting of results, the environment variables MANPAGER and MANPATH the database format, and the configuration file are extensions to that specification.

HISTORY

Part of the functionality of whatis was already provided by the former manwhere utility in BSD 1 The and whatis utilities first appeared in BSD 2 They were rewritten from scratch for Ox 5.6 .

The -M option and the MANPATH variable first appeared in BSD 4.3 -m in BSD 4.3 Reno -C in BSD 4.4 Lite1 and -S and -s in Ox 4.5 for and in Ox 5.6 for whatis The options -acfhIKklOTWw appeared in Ox 5.7 .

AUTHORS

An -nosplit An Bill Joy wrote manwhere in 1977 and the original BSD and whatis in February 1979. The current version was written by An Kristaps Dzonsons Aq Mt kristaps@bsd.lv and An Ingo Schwarze Aq Mt schwarze@openbsd.org .

Index

NAME

SYNOPSIS

DESCRIPTION

Macro Keys

Ta section header (excluding standard sections)