WHATIS(1)                            BSD                             WHATIS(1)



NAME
     whatis - describe what a command is

SYNOPSIS
     whatis command ...

DESCRIPTION
     whatis looks up a given command, system call, library function, or
     special file name, and gives the header line from the manual section.
     This header line should contain the section number and command name,
     along with a very brief one-line description.  You can then run the
     man(1) command to get more information about the particular command.  If
     the line begins with name(section) ... you can use man section name to
     get the documentation for it.

     whatis is actually just the -f option to the man(1) command.

     This command is only useful if you know the name of what you're looking
     for. If you're not sure, apropos(1) is more thorough about searching the
     header lines, which sometimes aren't complete descriptions of the
     command's purpose.

EXAMPLE
          % whatis ed
          ed(1) - text editor

     You can type the following line to get the manual entry for ed.

          man 1 ed

FILES
     /usr/man/whatis     Data base

SEE ALSO
     apropos(1), man(1), catman(8)