apropos(s)              Manual pager utils             apropos(s)



NAME
       apropos - search the manual page names and descriptions

SYNOPSIS
       apropos [-dhV] [-e|-w|-r] [-m system[,...]] [-M path] key-
       word ...

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 descrip-
       tion.

OPTIONS
       -d, --debug
              Print debugging information.

       -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  descrip-
              tions  independently.   It  can  match  any part of
              either.  The match is not limited  to  word  bound-
              aries.

       -w, --wildcard
              Interpret  each  keyword  as  a  pattern containing
              shell  style  wildcards.   Each  keyword  will   be
              matched against the page names and the descriptions
              independently.  A match will only be  found  if  an
              expanded  keyword  matches an entire description or
              page name.

       -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 sys-
              tem's  manual  page  descriptions,  they   can   be
              searched using this option.  To search NewOS's man-
              ual 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  operating  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 hierarchies to search.   By  default,  apropos
              uses  the  $MANPATH environment variable, unless it
              is empty or unset, in which case it will  determine
              an appropriate manpath based on your $PATH environ-
              ment variable.  This option overrides the  contents
              of $MANPATH.

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

       -V, --version
              Display version and author 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 speci-
              fied.

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-delimited  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(s), man(n).

AUTHOR
       Wilf. (G.Wilford@ee.surrey.ac.uk).
       Fabrizio Polacco (fpolacco@debian.org).



2.3.20                  07 September 2001              apropos(s)