.\" $OpenBSD: apropos.1,v 1.38 2017/07/04 23:38:49 schwarze Exp $ .\" .\" Copyright (c) 2011, 2012 Kristaps Dzonsons .\" Copyright (c) 2011, 2012, 2014, 2017 Ingo Schwarze .\" .\" Permission to use, copy, modify, and distribute this software for any .\" purpose with or without fee is hereby granted, provided that the above .\" copyright notice and this permission notice appear in all copies. .\" .\" THE SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED "AS IS" AND THE AUTHOR DISCLAIMS ALL WARRANTIES .\" WITH REGARD TO THIS SOFTWARE INCLUDING ALL IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF .\" MERCHANTABILITY AND FITNESS. IN NO EVENT SHALL THE AUTHOR BE LIABLE FOR .\" ANY SPECIAL, DIRECT, INDIRECT, OR CONSEQUENTIAL DAMAGES OR ANY DAMAGES .\" WHATSOEVER RESULTING FROM LOSS OF USE, DATA OR PROFITS, WHETHER IN AN .\" ACTION OF CONTRACT, NEGLIGENCE OR OTHER TORTIOUS ACTION, ARISING OUT OF .\" OR IN CONNECTION WITH THE USE OR PERFORMANCE OF THIS SOFTWARE. .\" .Dd $Mdocdate: July 4 2017 $ .Dt APROPOS 1 .Os .Sh NAME .Nm apropos , .Nm whatis .Nd search manual page databases .Sh SYNOPSIS .Nm .Op Fl afk .Op Fl C Ar file .Op Fl M Ar path .Op Fl m Ar path .Op Fl O Ar outkey .Op Fl S Ar arch .Op Fl s Ar section .Ar expression ... .Sh DESCRIPTION The .Nm apropos and .Nm whatis utilities query manual page databases generated by .Xr makewhatis 8 , evaluating .Ar expression for each file in each database. By default, they display the names, section numbers, and description lines of all matching manuals. .Pp By default, .Nm searches for .Xr makewhatis 8 databases in the default paths stipulated by .Xr man 1 and uses case-insensitive substring matching .Pq the Cm = No operator over manual names and descriptions .Pq the Li \&Nm No and Li \&Nd No macro keys . Multiple terms imply pairwise .Fl o . .Pp .Nm whatis is a synonym for .Nm .Fl f . .Pp The options are as follows: .Bl -tag -width Ds .It Fl a Instead of showing only the title lines, show the complete manual pages, just like .Xr man 1 .Fl a would. If the standard output is a terminal device and .Fl c is not specified, use .Xr more 1 to paginate them. In .Fl a mode, the options .Fl IKOTW described in the .Xr mandoc 1 manual are also available. .It Fl C Ar file Specify an alternative configuration .Ar file in .Xr man.conf 5 format. .It Fl f Search for all words in .Ar expression in manual page names only. The search is case insensitive and matches whole words only. In this mode, macro keys, comparison operators, and logical operators are not available. .It Fl k Support the full .Ar expression syntax. It is the default for .Nm . .It Fl M Ar path Use the colon-separated path instead of the default list of paths searched for .Xr makewhatis 8 databases. Invalid paths, or paths without manual databases, are ignored. .It Fl m Ar path Prepend the colon-separated paths to the list of paths searched for .Xr makewhatis 8 databases. Invalid paths, or paths without manual databases, are ignored. .It Fl O Ar outkey Show the values associated with the key .Ar outkey instead of the manual descriptions. .It Fl S Ar arch Restrict the search to pages for the specified .Xr machine 1 architecture. .Ar arch is case insensitive. By default, pages for all architectures are shown. .It Fl s Ar section Restrict the search to the specified section of the manual. By default, pages from all sections are shown. See .Xr man 1 for a listing of sections. .El .Pp The options .Fl chlw are also supported and are documented in .Xr man 1 . The options .Fl fkl are mutually exclusive and override each other. .Pp An .Ar expression consists of search terms joined by logical operators .Fl a .Pq and and .Fl o .Pq or . The .Fl a operator has precedence over .Fl o and both are evaluated left-to-right. .Bl -tag -width Ds .It \&( Ar expr No \&) True if the subexpression .Ar expr is true. .It Ar expr1 Fl a Ar expr2 True if both .Ar expr1 and .Ar expr2 are true (logical .Sq and ) . .It Ar expr1 Oo Fl o Oc Ar expr2 True if .Ar expr1 and/or .Ar expr2 evaluate to true (logical .Sq or ) . .It Ar term True if .Ar term is satisfied. This has syntax .Sm off .Oo .Op Ar key Op , Ar key ... .Pq Cm = | \(ti .Oc .Ar val , .Sm on where .Ar key is an .Xr mdoc 7 macro to query and .Ar val is its value. See .Sx Macro Keys for a list of available keys. Operator .Cm = evaluates a substring, while .Cm \(ti evaluates a regular expression. .It Fl i Ar term If .Ar term is a regular expression, it is evaluated case-insensitively. Has no effect on substring terms. .El .Pp Results are sorted according to the following criteria: .Bl -enum .It The manpath directory tree the page is found in, according to the order specified with .Fl M , .Fl m , the .Ev MANPATH environment variable, the .Xr man.conf 5 configuration file, or the default documented in .Xr man.conf 5 . .It The section number in ascending numerical order. .It The page name in ascending .Xr ascii 7 alphabetical order, case-insensitive. .El .Pp Each output line is formatted as .Pp .D1 name[, name...](sec) \- description .Pp Where .Dq name is the manual's name, .Dq sec is the manual section, and .Dq description is the manual's short description. If an architecture is specified for the manual, it is displayed as .Pp .D1 name(sec/arch) \- description .Pp Resulting manuals may be accessed as .Pp .Dl $ man \-s sec name .Pp If an architecture is specified in the output, use .Pp .Dl $ man \-s sec \-S arch name .Ss Macro Keys Queries evaluate over a subset of .Xr mdoc 7 macros indexed by .Xr makewhatis 8 . In addition to the macro keys listed below, the special key .Cm any may be used to match any available macro key. .Pp Names and description: .Bl -column "xLix" description -offset indent -compact .It Li \&Nm Ta manual name .It Li \&Nd Ta one-line manual description .It Li arch Ta machine architecture (case-insensitive) .It Li sec Ta manual section number .El .Pp Sections and cross references: .Bl -column "xLix" description -offset indent -compact .It Li \&Sh Ta section header (excluding standard sections) .It Li \&Ss Ta subsection header .It Li \&Xr Ta cross reference to another manual page .It Li \&Rs Ta bibliographic reference .El .Pp Semantic markup for command line utilities: .Bl -column "xLix" description -offset indent -compact .It Li \&Fl Ta command line options (flags) .It Li \&Cm Ta command modifier .It Li \&Ar Ta command argument .It Li \&Ic Ta internal or interactive command .It Li \&Ev Ta environmental variable .It Li \&Pa Ta file system path .El .Pp Semantic markup for function libraries: .Bl -column "xLix" description -offset indent -compact .It Li \&Lb Ta function library name .It Li \&In Ta include file .It Li \&Ft Ta function return type .It Li \&Fn Ta function name .It Li \&Fa Ta function argument type and name .It Li \&Vt Ta variable type .It Li \&Va Ta variable name .It Li \&Dv Ta defined variable or preprocessor constant .It Li \&Er Ta error constant .It Li \&Ev Ta environmental variable .El .Pp Various semantic markup: .Bl -column "xLix" description -offset indent -compact .It Li \&An Ta author name .It Li \&Lk Ta hyperlink .It Li \&Mt Ta Do mailto Dc hyperlink .It Li \&Cd Ta kernel configuration declaration .It Li \&Ms Ta mathematical symbol .It Li \&Tn Ta tradename .El .Pp Physical markup: .Bl -column "xLix" description -offset indent -compact .It Li \&Em Ta italic font or underline .It Li \&Sy Ta boldface font .It Li \&Li Ta typewriter font .El .Pp Text production: .Bl -column "xLix" description -offset indent -compact .It Li \&St Ta reference to a standards document .It Li \&At Ta At No version reference .It Li \&Bx Ta Bx No version reference .It Li \&Bsx Ta Bsx No version reference .It Li \&Nx Ta Nx No version reference .It Li \&Fx Ta Fx No version reference .It Li \&Ox Ta Ox No version reference .It Li \&Dx Ta Dx No version reference .El .Sh ENVIRONMENT .Bl -tag -width MANPAGER .It Ev MANPAGER Any non-empty value of the environment variable .Ev MANPAGER is used instead of the standard pagination program, .Xr more 1 ; see .Xr man 1 for details. Only used if .Fl a or .Fl l is specified. .It Ev MANPATH A colon-separated list of directories to search for manual pages; see .Xr man 1 for details. Overridden by .Fl M , ignored if .Fl l is specified. .It Ev PAGER Specifies the pagination program to use when .Ev MANPAGER is not defined. If neither PAGER nor MANPAGER is defined, .Xr more 1 .Fl s is used. Only used if .Fl a or .Fl l is specified. .El .Sh FILES .Bl -tag -width "/etc/man.conf" -compact .It Pa mandoc.db name of the .Xr makewhatis 8 keyword database .It Pa /etc/man.conf default .Xr man 1 configuration file .El .Sh EXIT STATUS .Ex -std .Sh EXAMPLES Search for .Qq .cf as a substring of manual names and descriptions: .Pp .Dl $ apropos .cf .Pp Include matches for .Qq .cnf and .Qq .conf as well: .Pp .Dl $ apropos .cf .cnf .conf .Pp Search in names and descriptions using a regular expression: .Pp .Dl $ apropos \(aq\(tiset.?[ug]id\(aq .Pp Search for manuals in the library section mentioning both the .Qq optind and the .Qq optarg variables: .Pp .Dl $ apropos \-s 3 Va=optind \-a Va=optarg .Pp Do exactly the same as calling .Nm whatis with the argument .Qq ssh : .Pp .Dl $ apropos \-\- \-i \(aqNm\(ti[[:<:]]ssh[[:>:]]\(aq .Pp The following two invocations are equivalent: .Pp .D1 Li $ apropos -S Ar arch Li -s Ar section expression .Bd -ragged -offset indent .Li $ apropos \e( Ar expression Li \e) .Li -a arch\(ti^( Ns Ar arch Ns Li |any)$ .Li -a sec\(ti^ Ns Ar section Ns Li $ .Ed .Sh SEE ALSO .Xr man 1 , .Xr re_format 7 , .Xr makewhatis 8 .Sh HISTORY Part of the functionality of .Nm whatis was already provided by the former .Nm manwhere utility in .Bx 1 . The .Nm and .Nm whatis utilities first appeared in .Bx 2 . They were rewritten from scratch for .Ox 5.6 . .Pp The .Fl M option and the .Ev MANPATH variable first appeared in .Bx 4.3 ; .Fl m in .Bx 4.3 Reno ; .Fl C in .Bx 4.4 Lite1 ; and .Fl S and .Fl s in .Ox 4.5 for .Nm and in .Ox 5.6 for .Nm whatis . The options .Fl acfhIKklOTWw appeared in .Ox 5.7 . .Sh AUTHORS .An -nosplit .An Bill Joy wrote .Nm manwhere in 1977 and the original .Bx .Nm and .Nm 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 .