Linux / Unix Command: makewhatis

Command Library

NAME

makewhatis - Create the whatis database  

SYNOPSIS

makewhatis [-u] [-v] [-w] [-s sections ] [-c [catpath]] [manpath]  

DESCRIPTION

makewhatis reads all the manual pages contained in the given sections of manpath or the preformatted pages contained in the given sections of catpath. For each page, it writes a line in the whatis database; each line consists of the name of the page and a short description, separated by a dash. The description is extracted using the content of the NAME section of the manual page.

Since other languages use a different term for the NAME section, makewhatis recognizes the equivalent terms in Czech, Italian, Finnish, French, German and Spanish.

If no manpath argument is given, /usr/man is assumed by default.  

OPTIONS

-u

Update database with new pages.

-v

Verbose output

-w

Use manpath obtained from `man --path`

-s sections

Looks in the sections of manpath or catpath. If the option is absent, its value is assumed to be '1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 n l'

-c catpath

The preformatted manual pages located in catpath are scanned. If the argument is not provided, it is assumed to be the first existing directory between /usr/man/preformat and /usr/man.

 

EXAMPLES

To rebuild only /usr/X11R6/man/whatis and /usr/local/man/whatis

makewhatis /usr/X11R6/man /usr/local/man

To rebuild all the databases, including those of the Finnish, French and Italian translations

LANGUAGE=fi:fr:it makewhatis -w

 

SEE ALSO

apropos(1), man(1), whatis(1)

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