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.\"     @(#)whatis.1	8.1 (Berkeley) 6/6/93
.\"
.Dd $Mdocdate: May 31 2007 $
.Dt WHATIS 1
.Os
.Sh NAME
.Nm whatis
.Nd describe what a command is
.Sh SYNOPSIS
.Nm whatis
.Op Fl C Ar file
.Op Fl M Ar path
.Op Fl m Ar path
.Ar command Op Ar ...
.Sh DESCRIPTION
.Nm
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.
.Nm
will match on a case insensitive basis and for multiple word entries
will match on each individual word.
.Pp
The options are as follows:
.Bl -tag -width Ds
.It Fl C Ar file
Specify an alternate configuration file in
.Xr man.conf 5
format.
The default is
.Pa /etc/man.conf .
.It Fl M Ar path
Override the list of standard directories
.Nm
searches for its database named
.Dq Pa whatis.db .
The supplied
.Ar path
must be a colon
.Pq Ql \&:
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
searches for its database named
.Dq Pa whatis.db .
The supplied
.Ar path
must be a colon-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 "/etc/man.conf" -compact
.It Pa whatis.db
name of the whatis database
.It Pa /etc/man.conf
default
.Xr man 1
configuration file
.El
.Sh SEE ALSO
.Xr apropos 1 ,
.Xr man 1 ,
.Xr whereis 1 ,
.Xr which 1 ,
.Xr man.conf 5 ,
.Xr makewhatis 8
.Sh HISTORY
The
.Nm
command appeared in
.Bx 3.0 .