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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.
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 filenameto 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().
/usr/share/man/windex table of contents and keyword database
See attributes(5) for descriptions of the following attributes:
ATTRIBUTE TYPE | ATTRIBUTE VALUE |
Availability | SUNWdoc |
CSI | Enabled |
man(1), whatis(1), catman(1M), attributes(5)
/usr/share/man/windex: No such file or directory
This database does not exist. catman(1M) must be run to create it.