NAME

whatis − describe what a command is

SYNOPSIS

whatis [ −a ] command ... 

DESCRIPTION

Whatis looks up a given command and gives the header line from the manual section.  You can then run the man(1) command to get more information. If the line starts ‘name(section) ...’ you can do ‘man section name’ to get the documentation for it. Try ‘whatis ed’ and then you should do ‘man 1 ed’ to get the manual.

Normally, whatis checks database files ‘/usr/jman/whatis’ and ‘/usr/man/whatis’. 
With option −a , whatis checks ‘/usr/man/whatis’ only. 

Whatis is actually just the −f option to the man(1) command.

FILES

/usr/{man,jman}/whatisData base

SEE ALSO

man(1), catman(8)

NEWS-OSRelease 3.3