---
name: "whatis"
section: "1"
platform: "linux"
package: "man-db"
version: "2.13.1-2"
release: "Arch Linux 2026-11-01"
platforms: ["linux", "freebsd", "macos"]
url: "https://new.carta.tech/whatis"
---

# whatis(1)

display one-line manual page descriptions

## NAME

whatis - display one-line manual page descriptions

## SYNOPSIS

**whatis** \[**-dlv?V**\] \[**-r**\|**-w** \] \[**-s** *list*\] \[**-m** *system*\[,...\]\] \[**-M** *path*\] \[**-L** *locale*\] \[**-C** *file*\] *name* ...

## DESCRIPTION

Each manual page has a short description available within it. **whatis** searches the manual page names and displays the manual page descriptions of any *name* matched.

*name* may contain wildcards (**-w**) or be a regular expression (**-r**). Using these options, it may be necessary to quote the *name* or escape (\\) the special characters to stop the shell from interpreting them.

**index** databases are used during the search, and are updated by the **mandb** program. Depending on your installation, this may be run by a periodic cron job, or may need to be run manually after new manual pages have been installed. To produce an old style text **whatis** database from the relative **index** database, issue the command:

**whatis -M** *manpath* **-w '\*' \| sort \>** *manpath/whatis*

where *manpath* is a manual page hierarchy such as */usr/man*.

## OPTIONS

- **-d**, **--debug**

  Print debugging information.

- **-v**, **--verbose**

  Print verbose warning messages.

- **-r**, **--regex**

  Interpret each *name* as a regular expression. If a *name* matches any part of a page name, a match will be made. This option causes **whatis** to be somewhat slower due to the nature of database searches.

- **-w**, **--wildcard**

  Interpret each *name* as a pattern containing shell style wildcards. For a match to be made, an expanded *name* must match the entire page name. This option causes **whatis** to be somewhat slower due to the nature of database searches.

- **-l**, **--long**

  Do not trim output to the terminal width. Normally, output will be truncated to the terminal width to avoid ugly results from poorly-written **NAME** sections.

- **-s** *list*, **--sections=***list*, **--section=***list*

  Search only the given manual sections. *list* is a colon- or comma-separated list of sections. If an entry in *list* is a simple section, for example "3", then the displayed list of descriptions will include pages in sections "3", "3perl", "3x", and so on; while if an entry in *list* has an extension, for example "3perl", then the list will only include pages in that exact part of the manual section.

- **-m** *system*\[,...\], **--systems=***system*\[,...\]

  If this system has access to other operating systems' manual page names, they can be accessed using this option. To search NewOS's manual page names, use the option **-m** **NewOS**.

  The *system* specified can be a combination of comma delimited operating system names. To include a search of the native operating system's manual page names, include the system name **man** in the argument string. This option will override the $**SYSTEM** environment variable.

- **-M** *path***, --manpath=***path*

  Specify an alternate set of colon-delimited manual page hierarchies to search. By default, **whatis** uses the $**MANPATH** environment variable, unless it is empty or unset, in which case it will determine an appropriate manpath based on your $**PATH** environment variable. This option overrides the contents of $**MANPATH**.

- **-L** *locale***, --locale=***locale*

  **whatis** will normally determine your current locale by a call to the C function [**setlocale**(3)](/setlocale/3.md) which interrogates various environment variables, possibly including $**LC\_MESSAGES** and $**LANG**. To temporarily override the determined value, use this option to supply a *locale* string directly to **whatis**. Note that it will not take effect until the search for pages actually begins. Output such as the help message will always be displayed in the initially determined locale.

- **-C** *file***, --config-file=***file*

  Use this user configuration file rather than the default of *~/.manpath*.

- **-?**, **--help**

  Print a help message and exit.

- **--usage**

  Print a short usage message and exit.

- **-V**, **--version**

  Display version information.

## EXIT STATUS

- **0**

  Successful program execution.

- **1**

  Usage, syntax or configuration file error.

- **2**

  Operational error.

- **16**

  Nothing was found that matched the criteria specified.

## ENVIRONMENT

- **SYSTEM**

  If $**SYSTEM** is set, it will have the same effect as if it had been specified as the argument to the **-m** option.

- **MANPATH**

  If $**MANPATH** is set, its value is interpreted as the colon-delimited manual page hierarchy search path to use.

  See the **SEARCH PATH** section of [**manpath**(5)](/manpath/5.md) for the default behaviour and details of how this environment variable is handled.

- **MANWIDTH**

  If $**MANWIDTH** is set, its value is used as the terminal width (see the **--long** option). If it is not set, the terminal width will be calculated using the value of $**COLUMNS**, and [**ioctl**(2)](/ioctl/2.md) if available, or falling back to 80 characters if all else fails.

## FILES

- */usr/share/man/index.(bt\|db\|dir\|pag)*

  A traditional global *index* database cache.

- */var/cache/man/index.(bt\|db\|dir\|pag)*

  An FHS compliant global *index* database cache.

- */usr/share/man/.../whatis*

  A traditional **whatis** text database.

## SEE ALSO

[**apropos**(1)](/apropos/1.md), [**man**(1)](/man/1.md), [**mandb**(8)](/mandb/8.md)

## AUTHOR

```
Wilf. (G.Wilford@ee.surrey.ac.uk).
Fabrizio Polacco (fpolacco@debian.org).
Colin Watson (cjwatson@debian.org).
```

## BUGS

https://gitlab.com/man-db/man-db/-/issues\
 https://savannah.nongnu.org/bugs/?group=man-db