xref: /illumos-gate/usr/src/man/man1/apropos.1 (revision b6805bf78d2bbbeeaea8909a05623587b42d58b3)
te
Copyright (c) 1996, Sun Microsystems, Inc. All Rights Reserved
The contents of this file are subject to the terms of the Common Development and Distribution License (the "License"). You may not use this file except in compliance with the License.
You can obtain a copy of the license at usr/src/OPENSOLARIS.LICENSE or http://www.opensolaris.org/os/licensing. See the License for the specific language governing permissions and limitations under the License.
When distributing Covered Code, include this CDDL HEADER in each file and include the License file at usr/src/OPENSOLARIS.LICENSE. If applicable, add the following below this CDDL HEADER, with the fields enclosed by brackets "[]" replaced with your own identifying information: Portions Copyright [yyyy] [name of copyright owner]
APROPOS 1 "Dec 20, 1996"
NAME
apropos - locate commands by keyword lookup
SYNOPSIS

apropos keyword...
DESCRIPTION

The apropos utility displays the man page name, section number, and a short description for each man page whose NAME line contains keyword. This information is contained in the /usr/share/man/windex database created by catman(1M). If catman(1M) was not run, or was run with the -n option, apropos fails. Each word is considered separately and the case of letters is ignored. Words which are part of other words are considered; for example, when looking for `compile', apropos finds all instances of `compiler' also.

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

EXAMPLES

Example 1 To find a man page whose NAME line contains a keyword

Try

example% apropos password

and

example% apropos editor

If the line starts `filename(section) .\|.\|.' you can run

man -s section filename

to display the man page for filename.

Example 2 To find the man page for the subroutine printf()

Try

example% apropos format

and then

example% man -s 3s printf

to get the manual page on the subroutine printf().

FILES
/usr/share/man/windex

table of contents and keyword database

ATTRIBUTES

See attributes(5) for descriptions of the following attributes:

ATTRIBUTE TYPE ATTRIBUTE VALUE
CSI Enabled
SEE ALSO

man(1), whatis(1), catman(1M), attributes(5)

DIAGNOSTICS
/usr/share/man/windex: No such file or directory

This database does not exist. catman(1M) must be run to create it.