apropos: search the whatis database for strings or keywords

Did you ever sweat as you couldn’t find which commands deal with particular keywords?

All linux users know they can get complete details about a command/system call from man pages. But, what if you don’t know the command? Yes, you can use apropos in such a situation .

apropos searches a set of database files containing short descriptions of system commands for keywords and displays the result on the standard output.

The man command also has search feature incorporated.

man -k  : Equivalent to apropos.
man -K  : Search for the specified string in *all* man pages. Warning: this is probably very slow! It helps to specify a section.

~mohammed

2 Responses to “apropos: search the whatis database for strings or keywords”

1. Pam Freelove says:

   February 8, 2010 at 12:27 pm

   umm… I am not
2. Amira Burrer says:

   February 9, 2010 at 12:35 pm

   umm… I am not