Man Page Minute – whereis

WHEREIS(1) WHEREIS(1)
NAME
whereis – locate the binary, source, and manual page files for a command
SYNOPSIS
whereis [ -bmsu ] [ -BMS directory… -f ] filename …
DESCRIPTION
whereis locates source/binary and manuals sections for specified files.
The supplied names are first stripped of leading pathname components
and any (single) trailing extension of the form .ext, for example, .c.
Prefixes of s. resulting from use of source code control are also
dealt with. whereis then attempts to locate the desired program in a
list of standard Linux places.
OPTIONS
-b Search only for binaries.
-m Search only for manual sections.
-s Search only for sources.
-u Search for unusual entries. A file is said to be unusual if it
does not have one entry of each requested type. Thus
whereis -m -u * asks for those files in the current direc
tory which have no documentation.
-B Change or otherwise limit the places where whereis searches for
binaries.
-M Change or otherwise limit the places where whereis searches for
manual sections.
-S Change or otherwise limit the places where whereis searches for
sources.
-f Terminate the last directory list and signals the start of file
names, and must be used when any of the -B, -M, or -S options
are used.
EXAMPLE
Find all files in /usr/bin which are not documented in /usr/man/man1
with source in /usr/src:
example% cd /usr/bin
example% whereis -u -M /usr/man/man1 -S /usr/src -f *
FILES
/{bin,sbin,etc}
/usr/{lib,bin,old,new,local,games,include,etc,src,man,sbin,
X386,TeX,g++-include}
/usr/local/{X386,TeX,X11,include,lib,man,etc,bin,games,emacs}
SEE ALSO
chdir(2V)
BUGS
Since whereis uses chdir(2V) to run faster, pathnames given with the
-M, -S, or -B must be full; that is, they must begin with a /.
whereis has a hard-coded path, so may not always find what youre look
ing for.
8 May 1994 WHEREIS(1)