MAKEWHATIS(8) | System Manager's Manual | MAKEWHATIS(8)

# NAME

`makewhatis` — index UNIX manuals

# SYNOPSIS

`makewhatis` | [`-aDnpQ`] [`-T` `utf8`] [`-C` file]

`makewhatis` | [`-aDnpQ`] [`-T` `utf8`] dir ...

`makewhatis` | [`-DnpQ`] [`-T` `utf8`] `-d` dir [file ...]

`makewhatis` | [`-Dnp`] [`-T` `utf8`] `-u` dir [file ...]

`makewhatis` | [`-DQ`] `-t` file ...

# DESCRIPTION

The `makewhatis` utility extracts keywords from UNIX manuals and indexes them in a database for fast retrieval by apropos(1), whatis(1), and man(1).

By default, `makewhatis` creates a database in each dir using the files man section`/`[arch`/`]title.section and cat section`/`[arch`/`]title.0 in that directory. Existing databases are replaced. If a directory contains no manual pages, no database is created in that directory. If dir is not provided, `makewhatis` uses the default paths stipulated by man.conf(5).

The arguments are as follows:

`-a`
  Use all directories and files found below dir ....
`-C` file
  Specify an alternative configuration file in man.conf(5) format.
`-D`
  Display all files added or removed to the index. With a second `-D`, also show all keywords added for each file.
`-d` dir
  Merge (remove and re-add) file ... to the database in dir.
`-n`
  Do not create or modify any database; scan and parse only, and print manual page names and descriptions to standard output.
`-p`
  Print warnings about potential problems with manual pages to the standard error output.
`-Q`
  Quickly build reduced-size databases by reading only the NAME sections of manuals. The resulting databases will usually contain names and descriptions only.
`-T` `utf8`
  Use UTF-8 encoding instead of ASCII for strings stored in the databases.
`-t` file ...
  Check the given files for potential problems. Implies `-a`, `-n`, and `-p`. All diagnostic messages are printed to the standard output; the standard error output is not used.
`-u` dir
  Remove file ... from the database in dir. If that causes the database to become empty, also delete the database file.

If fatal parse errors are encountered while parsing, the offending file is printed to stderr, omitted from the index, and the parse continues with the next input file.

# ENVIRONMENT

`MANPATH`
  A colon-separated list of directories to create databases in. Ignored if a dir argument or the `-t` option is specified.

# FILES

mandoc.db
  A database of manpages relative to the directory of the file. This file is portable across architectures and systems, so long as the manpage hierarchy it indexes does not change.
/etc/man.conf
  The default man(1) configuration file.

# EXIT STATUS

The `makewhatis` utility exits with one of the following values:

0
  No errors occurred.
5
  Invalid command line arguments were specified. No input files have been read.
6
  An operating system error occurred, for example memory exhaustion or an error accessing input files. Such errors cause `makewhatis` to exit at once, possibly in the middle of parsing or formatting a file. The output databases are corrupt and should be removed.

# SEE ALSO

apropos(1), man(1), whatis(1), man.conf(5)

# HISTORY

A `makewhatis` utility first appeared in 2BSD. It was rewritten in perl(1) for OpenBSD 2.7 and in C for OpenBSD 5.6.

The dir argument first appeared in NetBSD 1.0; the options `-dpt` in OpenBSD 2.7; the option `-u` in OpenBSD 3.4; and the options `-aCDnQT` in OpenBSD 5.6.

# AUTHORS

Bill Joy wrote the original BSD `makewhatis` in February 1979, Marc Espie started the Perl version in 2000, and the current version of `makewhatis` was written by Kristaps Dzonsons <kristaps@bsd.lv> and Ingo Schwarze <schwarze@openbsd.org>.

March 16, 2022 | Debian