Content-type: text/html Man page of apropos

apropos

Section: User Commands (1)
Updated: 20 Dec 1996
Index Return to Main Contents
 

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 TYPEATTRIBUTE VALUE
AvailabilitySUNWdoc
CSIEnabled

 

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.


 

Index

NAME
SYNOPSIS
DESCRIPTION
EXAMPLES
FILES
ATTRIBUTES
SEE ALSO
DIAGNOSTICS

This document was created by man2html, using the manual pages.
Time: 02:39:21 GMT, October 02, 2010