APROPOS(1)

NAME
apropos - locate commands by keyword lookup

SYNOPSIS
apropos keyword...

DESCRIPTION

apropos displays the man page name, section number, and a short description for each man page whose NAME line contains keyword. This information is contained in the /usr/man/whatis database created by catman(8). If catman(8) was not run, or was run with the -n option, apropos fails. Each word is considered separately and the case of letters is ignored. Words which are part of other words are considered; for example, when looking for `compile', apropos finds all instances of `compiler' also.

apropos is actually just the -k option to the man(1) command.

Try

    example% apropos password

and

    example% apropos editor

If the line starts `filename(section) ...' you can do `man section filename' to display the man page for filename. Try

    example% apropos format

and then

    example% man 3s printf

to get the manual page on the subroutine printf().

FILES
/usr/man/whatis
    data base

SEE ALSO
man(1), whatis(1), catman(8)

DIAGNOSTICS

/usr/man/whatis: No such file or directory
    This database does not exist. catman(8) must be run to create it.