apropos(1)                                                          apropos(1)



NAME
     apropos - locate commands by keyword lookup

SYNOPSIS
     apropos keyword ...

DESCRIPTION
     apropos shows which manual sections contain instances of any of the given
     keywords in their title.  Each word is considered separately, and, case
     of letters is ignored.  Words that are parts of other words are
     considered; thus, when looking for compile, apropos will also find all
     instances of compiler.  Try

          apropos password

     and

          apropos editor

     If the line starts `name(section) ...' you can do `man section name' to
     get the documentation for it.  Try `apropos format' and then `man 3
     printf' to get the manual on the subroutine printf.

     apropos is actually just the -k option to the man(1) command.

FILES
     /usr/share/catman/whatis      database

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

CAVEATS
     apropos (man -k) requires that the whatis database be kept up to date by
     running makewhatis(1M) after installing or removing software from the
     system.  If the whatis database is not kept up to date, apropos (man -k)
     will not find entries for new manual pages and will erroneously refer to
     manual pages that no longer exist on the system.


















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