WHATIS(1) Manual pager utils WHATIS(1)

# [NAME](#NAME)

whatis - display one-line manual page descriptions

# [SYNOPSIS](#SYNOPSIS)

**whatis** \[**-dlv?V**] \[**-r**|**-w**] \[**-s** *list*] \[**-m** *system*\[,...]] \[**-M** *path*] \[**-L** *locale*] \[**-C** *file*] *name* ...

# [DESCRIPTION](#DESCRIPTION)

Each manual page has a short description available within it. **whatis** searches the manual page names and displays the manual page descriptions of any *name* matched.

*name* may contain wildcards (**-w**) or be a regular expression (**-r**). Using these options, it may be necessary to quote the *name* or escape (\\) the special characters to stop the shell from interpreting them.

**index** databases are used during the search, and are updated by the **mandb** program. Depending on your installation, this may be run by a periodic cron job, or may need to be run manually after new manual pages have been installed. To produce an old style text **whatis** database from the relative **index** database, issue the command:

**whatis -M** *manpath* **-w '\*' | sort >** *manpath/whatis*

where *manpath* is a manual page hierarchy such as */usr/man*.

# [OPTIONS](#OPTIONS)

[**-d**, **--debug**](#d)

Print debugging information.

[**-v**, **--verbose**](#v)

Print verbose warning messages.

[**-r**, **--regex**](#r)

Interpret each *name* as a regular expression. If a *name* matches any part of a page name, a match will be made. This option causes **whatis** to be somewhat slower due to the nature of database searches.

[**-w**, **--wildcard**](#w)

Interpret each *name* as a pattern containing shell style wildcards. For a match to be made, an expanded *name* must match the entire page name. This option causes **whatis** to be somewhat slower due to the nature of database searches.

[**-l**, **--long**](#l)

Do not trim output to the terminal width. Normally, output will be truncated to the terminal width to avoid ugly results from poorly-written **NAME** sections.

[**-s** *list*, **--sections=list**, **--section=list**](#s)

Search only the given manual sections. *list* is a colon- or comma-separated list of sections. If an entry in *list* is a simple section, for example "3", then the displayed list of descriptions will include pages in sections "3", "3perl", "3x", and so on; while if an entry in *list* has an extension, for example "3perl", then the list will only include pages in that exact part of the manual section.

[**-m** *system*\[,...\], **--systems=system**\[,...\]](#m)

If this system has access to other operating systems' manual page names, they can be accessed using this option. To search NewOS's manual page names, 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 operating system's manual page names, include the system name **man** in the argument string. This option will override the $**SYSTEM** environment variable.

[**-M path, --manpath=**path****](#M)

Specify an alternate set of colon-delimited manual page hierarchies to search. By default, **whatis** uses the $**MANPATH** environment variable, unless it is empty or unset, in which case it will determine an appropriate manpath based on your $**PATH** environment variable. This option overrides the contents of $**MANPATH**.

[**-L locale, --locale=**locale****](#L)

**whatis** will normally determine your current locale by a call to the C function [**setlocale**(3)](/man/os/man-db/setlocale.3) which interrogates various environment variables, possibly including $**LC\_MESSAGES** and $**LANG**. To temporarily override the determined value, use this option to supply a *locale* string directly to **whatis**. Note that it will not take effect until the search for pages actually begins. Output such as the help message will always be displayed in the initially determined locale.

[**-C file, --config-file=**file****](#C)

Use this user configuration file rather than the default of *~/.manpath*.

**-?**, **--help**

Print a help message and exit.

[**--usage**](#usage)

Print a short usage message and exit.

[**-V**, **--version**](#V)

Display version information.

# [EXIT STATUS](#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](#ENVIRONMENT)

[**SYSTEM**](#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**](#MANPATH)

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

See the **SEARCH PATH** section of [**manpath**(5)](/man/os/man-db/manpath.5) for the default behaviour and details of how this environment variable is handled.

[**MANWIDTH**](#MANWIDTH)

If $**MANWIDTH** is set, its value is used as the terminal width (see the **--long** option). If it is not set, the terminal width will be calculated using the value of $**COLUMNS**, and [**ioctl**(2)](/man/os/man-db/ioctl.2) if available, or falling back to 80 characters if all else fails.

# [FILES](#FILES)

*/usr/share/man/index.(bt|db|dir|pag)*

A traditional global *index* database cache.

*/var/cache/man/index.(bt|db|dir|pag)*

An FHS compliant global *index* database cache.

*/usr/share/man/.../whatis*

A traditional **whatis** text database.

# [SEE ALSO](#SEE_ALSO)

[**apropos**(1)](/man/os/man-db/apropos.1), [**man**(1)](/man/os/man-db/man.1), [**mandb**(8)](/man/os/man-db/mandb.8)

# [AUTHOR](#AUTHOR)

```
Wilf. (G.Wilford@ee.surrey.ac.uk).
Fabrizio Polacco (fpolacco@debian.org).
Colin Watson (cjwatson@debian.org).
```

# [BUGS](#BUGS)

https://gitlab.com/man-db/man-db/-/issues  
https://savannah.nongnu.org/bugs/?group=man-db

2025-05-02 2.13.1

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Document: whatis(1) from man-db 2.13.1-r55 (Chainguard OS)
Source: https://gitlab.com/man-db/man-db