apropos

apropos(1)                    Manual pager utils                    apropos(1)



NAME
       apropos - search the manual page names and descriptions

SYNOPSIS
       apropos [-dhV] [-e|-w|-r] [-m system[,...]] [-M path] [-C file] keyword
       ...

DESCRIPTION
       Each manual page has a short description available within it.   apropos
       searches the descriptions for instances of keyword.

       keyword  is  usually  a regular expression, as if (-r) was used, or may
       contain wildcards (-w), or match the exact keyword (-e).   Using  these
       options,  it  may  be  necessary to quote the keyword or escape (\) the
       special characters to stop the shell from interpreting them.

       The standard matching rules allow matches to be made against  the  page
       name and word boundaries in the description.

OPTIONS
       -d, --debug
              Print debugging information.

       -v, --verbose
              Print verbose warning messages.

       -r, --regex
              Interpret  each  keyword  as  a regular expression.  This is the
              default behaviour.  Each keyword will  be  matched  against  the
              page names and the descriptions independently.  It can match any
              part of either.  The match is not limited to word boundaries.

       -w, --wildcard
              Interpret each keyword as a pattern containing shell style wild-
              cards.   Each keyword will be matched against the page names and
              the descriptions independently.  If  --exact  is  also  used,  a
              match  will  only  be  found  if  an expanded keyword matches an
              entire description or page name.  Otherwise the keyword is  also
              allowed to match on word boundaries in the description.

       -e, --exact
              Each  keyword will be exactly matched against the page names and
              the descriptions.

       -m system[,...], --systems=system[,...]
              If this system has access to  other  operating  system's  manual
              page  descriptions,  they can be searched using this option.  To
              search NewOS's manual  page  descriptions,  use  the  option  -m
              NewOS.

              The  system  specified  can  be a combination of comma-delimited
              operating system names.  To include a search of the native oper-
              ating  system's whatis descriptions, include the system name man
              in the argument string.  This option will override  the  $SYSTEM
              environment variable.

       -M path, --manpath=path
              Specify  an alternate set of colon-delimited manual page hierar-
              chies to search.  By default, apropos uses the $MANPATH environ-
              ment  variable,  unless  it  is empty or unset, in which case it
              will determine an appropriate manpath based on your $PATH  envi-
              ronment   variable.   This  option  overrides  the  contents  of
              $MANPATH.

       -C file, --config-file=file
              Use this user configuration file  rather  than  the  default  of
              ~/.manpath.

       -h, --help
              Print a help message and exit.

       -V, --version
              Display version information.

EXIT STATUS
       0      Successful program execution.

       1      Usage, syntax or configuration file error.

       2      Operational error.

       16     Nothing was found that matched the criteria specified.

ENVIRONMENT
       SYSTEM If  $SYSTEM  is  set,  it will have the same effect as if it had
              been specified as the argument to the -m option.

       MANPATH
              If $MANPATH is set, its value is interpreted as the colon-delim-
              ited manual page hierarchy search path to use.

       POSIXLY_CORRECT
              If  $POSIXLY_CORRECT  is  set, even to a null value, the default
              apropos search will be as an extended  regex  (-r) .   Nowadays,
              this is the default behaviour anyway.

FILES
       /usr/share/man/index.(bt|db|dir|pag)
              A traditional global index database cache.

       /var/cache/man/index.(bt|db|dir|pag)
              An alternate or FHS compliant global index database cache.

       /usr/share/man/.../whatis
              A traditional whatis text database.

SEE ALSO
       whatis(1), man(1).

AUTHOR
       Wilf. (G.Wilford AT ee.uk).
       Fabrizio Polacco (fpolacco AT debian.org).



2.4.2                             2003-09-20                        apropos(1)