apropos
,
whatis
—
search manual page databases
apropos |
[ -afk ]
[-C
file ]
[-M
path ]
[-m
path ]
[-O
outkey ]
[-S
arch ]
[-s
section ]
expression ... |
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,
apropos
searches for
makewhatis(8)
databases in the default paths stipulated by
man(1)
and uses case-insensitive substring matching (the
=
operator) over
manual names and descriptions (the
Nm
and Nd
macro
keys). Multiple terms imply pairwise
-o
.
whatis
is a synonym for
apropos
-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
more(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.conf(5)
format.
-f
- Search for all words in 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.
-k
- Support the full expression syntax. It is
the default for
apropos
.
-M
path
- Use the colon-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 colon-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 case 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 left-to-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
[]val,
where key is an
mdoc(7)
macro to query and val is its value. See
Macro Keys for a list of
available keys. Operator
=
evaluates a
substring, while ~
evaluates a regular
expression.
-i
term
- If term is a regular expression, it is
evaluated case-insensitively. Has no effect on substring terms.
Results are sorted according to the following criteria:
- The manpath directory tree the page is found in, according to the order
specified with
-M
,
-m
, the
MANPATH
environment variable, the
man.conf(5)
configuration file, or the default documented in
man.conf(5).
- The section number in ascending numerical order.
- The page name in ascending
ascii(7)
alphabetical order, case-insensitive.
Each output line is formatted as
name[, name...](sec) - description
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
name(sec/arch) - description
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
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:
Nm |
manual name |
Nd |
one-line manual description |
arch |
machine architecture (case-insensitive) |
sec |
manual section number |
Sections and cross references:
Sh |
section header (excluding standard sections) |
Ss |
subsection header |
Xr |
cross reference to another manual page |
Rs |
bibliographic reference |
Semantic markup for command line utilities:
Fl |
command line options (flags) |
Cm |
command modifier |
Ar |
command argument |
Ic |
internal or interactive command |
Ev |
environmental variable |
Pa |
file system path |
Semantic markup for function libraries:
Lb |
function library name |
In |
include file |
Ft |
function return type |
Fn |
function name |
Fa |
function argument type and name |
Vt |
variable type |
Va |
variable name |
Dv |
defined variable or preprocessor constant |
Er |
error constant |
Ev |
environmental variable |
Various semantic markup:
An |
author name |
Lk |
hyperlink |
Mt |
“mailto” hyperlink |
Cd |
kernel configuration declaration |
Ms |
mathematical symbol |
Tn |
tradename |
Physical markup:
Em |
italic font or underline |
Sy |
boldface font |
Li |
typewriter font |
Text production:
St |
reference to a standards document |
At |
AT&T UNIX version
reference |
Bx |
BSD version
reference |
Bsx |
BSD/OS version
reference |
Nx |
NetBSD version
reference |
Fx |
FreeBSD version
reference |
Ox |
OpenBSD version
reference |
Dx |
DragonFly 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
- fuction 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
- Any non-empty value of the environment variable
MANPAGER
is used instead of the
standard pagination program,
more(1);
see
man(1)
for details. Only used if -a
or
-l
is specified.
MANPATH
- A colon-separated list of directories to search for manual pages; see
man(1)
for details. Overridden by
-M
, ignored
if -l
is specified.
- Specifies the pagination program to use when
MANPAGER
is not defined. If neither
PAGER nor MANPAGER is defined,
more(1)
-s
is used. Only used if
-a
or
-l
is specified.
- mandoc.db
- name of the
makewhatis(8)
keyword database
- /etc/man.conf
- default
man(1)
configuration file
The
apropos
utility exits 0 on
success, and >0 if an error occurs.
Search for “.cf” as a substring of manual names and descriptions:
$ apropos .cf
Include matches for “.cnf” and “.conf” as well:
$ apropos .cf .cnf .conf
Search in names and descriptions using a regular expression:
$ apropos '~set.?[ug]id'
Search for manuals in the library section mentioning both the
“optind” and the “optarg” variables:
$ apropos -s 3 Va=optind -a
Va=optarg
Do exactly the same as calling
whatis
with
the argument “ssh”:
$ apropos -- -i
'Nm~[[:<:]]ssh[[:>:]]'
The following two invocations are equivalent:
$ apropos -S
arch -s
section expression
$ apropos \(
expression \)
-a
arch~^(
arch|any)$
-a
sec~^
section$
man(1),
re_format(7),
makewhatis(8)
Part of the functionality of
whatis
was
already provided by the former
manwhere
utility in
1BSD. The
apropos
and
whatis
utilities first appeared in
2BSD. They were rewritten from scratch for
OpenBSD 5.6.
The
-M
option and the
MANPATH
variable first appeared in
4.3BSD;
-m
in
4.3BSD-Reno;
-C
in
4.4BSD-Lite1; and
-S
and
-s
in
OpenBSD 4.5
for
apropos
and in
OpenBSD
5.6 for
whatis
. The options
-acfhIKklOTWw
appeared in
OpenBSD 5.7.
Bill Joy wrote
manwhere
in 1977 and the original
BSD apropos
and
whatis
in February 1979. The current
version was written by
Kristaps Dzonsons
<
kristaps@bsd.lv>
and
Ingo Schwarze
<
schwarze@openbsd.org>.