--- name: "whatis" section: "1" platform: "macos" package: "man" version: "62" release: "macOS 26.5" platforms: ["linux", "freebsd", "macos"] url: "https://new.carta.tech/man" --- # whatis(1) display online manual documentation pages Part of [man(1)](/man/1.md). ## NAME **man**, **apropos**, **whatis** – display online manual documentation pages ## SYNOPSIS **man** \[**-adho**\] \[**-t** \| **-w**\] \[**-M** *manpath*\] \[**-P** *pager*\] \[**-S** *mansect*\] \[**-m** *arch*\[:*machine*\]\] \[**-p** \[*eprtv*\]\] \[*mansect*\] *page* *...* **man** **-f** \[**-d**\] \[**-M** *manpath*\] \[**-P** *pager*\] \[**-S** *mansect*\] *keyword* *...* **whatis** \[**-d**\] \[**-s** *mansect*\] *keyword* *...* **man** **-k** \[**-d**\] \[**-M** *manpath*\] \[**-P** *pager*\] \[**-S** *mansect*\] *keyword* *...* **apropos** \[**-d**\] \[**-s** *mansect*\] *keyword* *...* ## DESCRIPTION The **man** utility finds and displays online manual documentation pages. If *mansect* is provided, **man** restricts the search to the specific section of the manual. The sections of the manual are: 1. General Commands Manual 2. System Calls Manual 3. Library Functions Manual 4. Kernel Interfaces Manual 5. File Formats Manual 6. Games Manual 7. Miscellaneous Information Manual 8. System Manager's Manual 9. Kernel Developer's Manual Options that **man** understands: - **-M** *manpath* Forces a specific colon separated manual path instead of the default search path. See [manpath(1)](/manpath/1.md). Overrides the MANPATH environment variable. - **-P** *pager* Use specified pager. Defaults to “less -sR” if color support is enabled, or “less -s”. Overrides the MANPAGER environment variable, which in turn overrides the PAGER environment variable. - **-S** *mansect* Restricts manual sections searched to the specified colon delimited list. Defaults to “1:8:2:3:3lua:n:4:5:6:7:9:l”. Overrides the MANSECT environment variable. - **-a** Display all manual pages instead of just the first found for each *page* argument. - **-d** Print extra debugging information. Repeat for increased verbosity. Does not display the manual page. - **-f** Emulate [whatis(1)](/whatis/1.md). Note that only a subset of options will have any effect when **man** is invoked in this mode. See the below description of **whatis** options for details. - **-h** Display short help message and exit. - **-k** Emulate [apropos(1)](/apropos/1.md). Note that only a subset of options will have any effect when **man** is invoked in this mode. See the below description of **apropos** options for details. - **-m** *arch*\[:*machine*\] Override the default architecture and machine settings allowing lookup of other platform specific manual pages. This option is accepted, but not implemented, on macOS. - **-o** Force use of non-localized manual pages. See IMPLEMENTATION NOTES for how locale specific searches work. Overrides the LC\_ALL, LC\_CTYPE, and LANG environment variables. - **-p** \[**eprtv**\] Use the list of given preprocessors before running [nroff(1)](/nroff/1.md) or [troff(1)](/troff/1.md). Valid preprocessors arguments: - **e** [eqn(1)](/eqn/1.md) - **p** [pic(1)](/pic/1.md) - **r** [refer(1)](/refer/1.md) - **t** [tbl(1)](/tbl/1.md) - **v** [vgrind(1)](/vgrind/1.md) Overrides the MANROFFSEQ environment variable. - **-t** Send manual page source through [troff(1)](/troff/1.md) allowing transformation of the manual pages to other formats. - **-w** Display the location of the manual page instead of the contents of the manual page. Options that **apropos** and **whatis** understand: - **-d** Same as the **-d** option for **man**. - **-s** Same as the **-S** option for **man**. When **man** is operated in **apropos** or **whatis** emulation mode, only a subset of its options will be honored. Specifically, **-d**, **-M**, **-P**, and **-S** have equivalent functionality in the **apropos** and **whatis** implementation provided. The MANPATH, MANSECT, and MANPAGER environment variables will similarly be honored. ## IMPLEMENTATION NOTES ### Locale Specific Searches The **man** utility supports manual pages in different locales. The search behavior is dictated by the first of three environment variables with a nonempty string: LC\_ALL, LC\_CTYPE, or LANG. If set, **man** will search for locale specific manual pages using the following logic: - *lang*\_*country*.*charset* - *lang*.*charset* - en.*charset* For example, if LC\_ALL is set to “ja\_JP.eucJP”, **man** will search the following paths when considering section 1 manual pages in */usr/share/man*: - */usr/share/man/ja\_JP.eucJP/man1* - */usr/share/man/ja.eucJP/man1* - */usr/share/man/en.eucJP/man1* - */usr/share/man/man1* ### Displaying Specific Manual Files The **man** utility also supports displaying a specific manual page if passed a path to the file as long as it contains a ‘/’ character. ## ENVIRONMENT The following environment variables affect the execution of **man**: - LC\_ALL, LC\_CTYPE, LANG Used to find locale specific manual pages. Valid values can be found by running the [locale(1)](/locale/1.md) command. See IMPLEMENTATION NOTES for details. Influenced by the **-o** option. - MACHINE\_ARCH, MACHINE Used to find platform specific manual pages. If unset, the output of “sysctl hw.machine\_arch” and “sysctl hw.machine” is used respectively. See IMPLEMENTATION NOTES for details. Corresponds to the **-m** option. - MANPATH The standard search path used by [man(1)](/man/1.md) may be changed by specifying a path in the MANPATH environment variable. Invalid paths, or paths without manual databases, are ignored. Overridden by **-M**. If MANPATH begins with a colon, it is appended to the default list; if it ends with a colon, it is prepended to the default list; or if it contains two adjacent colons, the standard search path is inserted between the colons. If none of these conditions are met, it overrides the standard search path. - MANROFFSEQ Used to determine the preprocessors for the manual source before running [nroff(1)](/nroff/1.md) or [troff(1)](/troff/1.md). If unset, defaults to [tbl(1)](/tbl/1.md). Corresponds to the **-p** option. - MANSECT Restricts manual sections searched to the specified colon delimited list. Corresponds to the **-S** option. - MANWIDTH If set to a numeric value, used as the width manpages should be displayed. Otherwise, if set to a special value “tty”, and output is to a terminal, the pages may be displayed over the whole width of the screen. - MANCOLOR If set, enables color support. - MANPAGER Program used to display files. If unset, and color support is enabled, “less -sR” is used. If unset, and color support is disabled, then PAGER is used. If that has no value either, “less -s” is used. ## FILES - */etc/man.conf* System configuration file. - */usr/local/etc/man.d/\*.conf* Local configuration files. ## EXIT STATUS The **man** utility exits 0 on success, and \>0 if an error occurs. ## EXAMPLES Show the manual page for [stat(2)](/stat/2.md): ``` $ man 2 stat ``` Show all manual pages for ‘stat’. ``` $ man -a stat ``` List manual pages which match the regular expression either in the title or in the body: ``` $ man -k '\.*archive' ``` Show the manual page for [ls(1)](/ls/1.md) and use [cat(1)](/cat/1.md) as pager: ``` $ man -P cat ls ``` Show the location of the [ls(1)](/ls/1.md) manual page: ``` $ man -w ls ``` ## SEE ALSO [apropos(1)](/apropos/1.md), [intro(1)](/intro/1.md), [mandoc(1)](/mandoc/1.md), [manpath(1)](/manpath/1.md), [whatis(1)](/whatis/1.md), [intro(2)](/intro/2.md), [intro(3)](/intro/3.md), [intro(3lua)](/intro/3lua.md), [intro(4)](/intro/4.md), [intro(5)](/intro/5.md), [man.conf(5)](/man.conf/5.md), [intro(6)](/intro/6.md), [intro(7)](/intro/7.md), [mdoc(7)](/mdoc/7.md), [intro(8)](/intro/8.md), [intro(9)](/intro/9.md)