MAKEWHATIS(8) BSD System Manager's Manual MAKEWHATIS(8)NAMEmakewhatis - create a whatis.db database
SYNOPSISmakewhatis [-p] [manpath ...]
makewhatis [-p] -d manpath files ...
makewhatis [-p] -u manpath files ...
makewhatis [-p] -t files
DESCRIPTIONmakewhatis strips 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.
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 ALSOapropos(1), man(1), nroff(1), whatis(1), man.conf(5)BUGSmakewhatis should parse /etc/man.conf and deal with extra configuration
information. In particular, it does not handle nroff(1) me format. Like-
wise, its use of heuristics to retrieve subjects from most man pages is
not 100% accurate.
MirOS BSD #10-current October 17, 1997 1
