NAME
makewhatis —
create a whatis.db database
SYNOPSIS
makewhatis |
[-pv] [manpath ...] |
makewhatis |
[-pv] -d
manpath files ... |
makewhatis |
[-pv] -u
manpath files ... |
makewhatis |
[-pv] -t
files |
DESCRIPTION
makewhatis extracts the NAME lines from
compiled or raw man(1) pages and creates a whatis.db database (that is, a
subject index) for use with
apropos(1),
whatis(1), and
man(1)'s -k option. If
manpath is unspecified,
makewhatis by default creates databases for each
directory prefixed by the _whatdb keyword in
/etc/man.conf. Man pages compressed with
compress(1) and
gzip(1) are uncompressed before processing.
If the -d option is used,
makewhatis merges the description of
files with an existing
whatis.db database in
manpath.
If the -u option is used,
makewhatis removes the description of
files from an existing
whatis.db database in
manpath.
By default, makewhatis is relatively
silent. If the -v is used,
makewhatis will be more verbose about manpages with
problems. If the -p option is used,
makewhatis is less forgiving and warns about
incorrect man pages.
The -t option can be used to check a set
of potential man pages without changing any
whatis.db database.
FILES
- whatis.db
- index to man pages in directory
- /etc/man.conf
- man configuration information
SEE ALSO
HISTORY
A makewhatis utility first appeared in
2BSD. It was rewritten in
perl(1) for OpenBSD 2.7.
The dir argument first appeared in
NetBSD 1.0; the options
-dptu in OpenBSD 2.7; and
the option -v in OpenBSD
4.9.
AUTHORS
Bill Joy wrote the original
BSD makewhatis in February
1979.
Marc Espie started the Perl version in 2000.
BUGS
makewhatis should parse
/etc/man.conf and deal with extra configuration
information.
The use of heuristics to retrieve subjects from most man pages is not 100% accurate.