APROPOS(1) FreeBSD General Commands Manual APROPOS(1)
NAME
apropos, whatis - search manual page databases
SYNOPSIS
apropos [-afk] [-C file] [-M path] [-m path] [-O outkey] [-S arch]
[-s section] expression ...
DESCRIPTION
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 extended regular
expression matching 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
[[key[,key...]](=|~)]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
case-sensitive extended regular expression.
-i term
If term is a regular expression, it is evaluated case-
insensitively. Has no effect on substring terms.
Results are sorted first according to the section number in ascending
numerical order, then by 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
Macro Keys
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 function 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
ENVIRONMENT
MANPAGER 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.
PAGER 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.
FILES
mandoc.db name of the makewhatis(8) keyword database
/etc/man.conf default man(1) configuration file
EXIT STATUS
The apropos utility exits 0 on success, and >0 if an error occurs.
EXAMPLES
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 case-sensitive 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$
SEE ALSO
man(1), re_format(7), makewhatis(8)
STANDARDS
The apropos utility is compliant with the IEEE Std 1003.1-2008
("POSIX.1") specification of man(1) -k.
All options, the whatis command, support for logical operators, macro
keys, substring matching, sorting of results, the environment variables
MANPAGER and MANPATH, the database format, and the configuration file are
extensions to that specification.
HISTORY
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.
AUTHORS
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>.
FreeBSD 13.1-RELEASE-p6 November 22, 2018 FreeBSD 13.1-RELEASE-p6
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