# whatis - display one-line manual page descriptions - man(1) - [phpMan] > **TLDR:** Display one-line descriptions from manual pages. > - Display a description from a man page: `whatis {{command}}` - Don't cut the description off at the end of the line: `whatis {{-l|--long}} {{command}}` - Display descriptions for all commands matching a `glob`: `whatis {{-w|--wildcard}} {{net*}}` - Search man page descriptions with a `regex`: `whatis {{-r|--regex}} '{{wish[0-9]\.[0-9}}'` - Display descriptions in a specific language: `whatis {{-L|--locale}} {{en}} {{command}}` *Source: tldr-pages* --- [_WHATIS_(1)](https://www.chedong.com/phpMan.php/man/WHATIS/1/markdown) Manual pager utils [_WHATIS_(1)](https://www.chedong.com/phpMan.php/man/WHATIS/1/markdown) ## 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 _ --sections=_ --section=_ 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 dis‐ played 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 _ --systems=_ 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 **envi‐ ronment variable. ### -M _ --manpath=_ Specify an alternate set of colon-delimited manual page hierarchies to search. By de‐ fault, **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=_ **whatis **will normally determine your current locale by a call to the C function **setlo‐** [**cale**(3)](https://www.chedong.com/phpMan.php/man/cale/3/markdown) which interrogates various environment variables, possibly including $**LC_MES‐** **SAGES **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 _ --config-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 ar‐ gument to the **-m **option. **MANPATH** If $**MANPATH **is set, its value is interpreted as the colon-delimited manual page hier‐ archy search path to use. See the **SEARCH PATH **section of [**manpath**(5)](https://www.chedong.com/phpMan.php/man/manpath/5/markdown) 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)](https://www.chedong.com/phpMan.php/man/ioctl/2/markdown) 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)](https://www.chedong.com/phpMan.php/man/apropos/1/markdown), [**man**(1)](https://www.chedong.com/phpMan.php/man/man/1/markdown), [**mandb**(8)](https://www.chedong.com/phpMan.php/man/mandb/8/markdown) ## AUTHOR Wilf. (). Fabrizio Polacco (). Colin Watson (). ## BUGS 2.12.0 2023-09-23 [_WHATIS_(1)](https://www.chedong.com/phpMan.php/man/WHATIS/1/markdown)