whatis - Describes a command's function
whatis [-M pathname] keyword...
The whatis command looks up a keyword, which may be a command,
system call, library function, or special filename
and displays the NAME line from the reference page. You
can then issue the man command to display additional
information.
Specifies an alternative search path. The search path is
a list of directories, separated by : (colons), in which
whatis expects to find the standard manual subdirectories.
(For more information, see the man command.)
The whatis command is equivalent to the man command with
the -f option.
To find out what function the ls command performs, enter:
whatis ls
Keyword database. Creates the whatis keyword database.
Used by mkwhatis to extract keywords from the manuals.
Commands: apropos(1), man(1), catman(8)
whatis(1)
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