1 .\" Copyright (c) 1980, 1990 The Regents of the University of California.
2 .\" All rights reserved.
4 .\" Redistribution and use in source and binary forms, with or without
5 .\" modification, are permitted provided that the following conditions
7 .\" 1. Redistributions of source code must retain the above copyright
8 .\" notice, this list of conditions and the following disclaimer.
9 .\" 2. Redistributions in binary form must reproduce the above copyright
10 .\" notice, this list of conditions and the following disclaimer in the
11 .\" documentation and/or other materials provided with the distribution.
12 .\" 3. All advertising materials mentioning features or use of this software
13 .\" must display the following acknowledgement:
14 .\" This product includes software developed by the University of
15 .\" California, Berkeley and its contributors.
16 .\" 4. Neither the name of the University nor the names of its contributors
17 .\" may be used to endorse or promote products derived from this software
18 .\" without specific prior written permission.
20 .\" THIS SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED BY THE REGENTS AND CONTRIBUTORS ``AS IS'' AND
21 .\" ANY EXPRESS OR IMPLIED WARRANTIES, INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, THE
22 .\" IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY AND FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE
23 .\" ARE DISCLAIMED. IN NO EVENT SHALL THE REGENTS OR CONTRIBUTORS BE LIABLE
24 .\" FOR ANY DIRECT, INDIRECT, INCIDENTAL, SPECIAL, EXEMPLARY, OR CONSEQUENTIAL
25 .\" DAMAGES (INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, PROCUREMENT OF SUBSTITUTE GOODS
26 .\" OR SERVICES; LOSS OF USE, DATA, OR PROFITS; OR BUSINESS INTERRUPTION)
27 .\" HOWEVER CAUSED AND ON ANY THEORY OF LIABILITY, WHETHER IN CONTRACT, STRICT
28 .\" LIABILITY, OR TORT (INCLUDING NEGLIGENCE OR OTHERWISE) ARISING IN ANY WAY
29 .\" OUT OF THE USE OF THIS SOFTWARE, EVEN IF ADVISED OF THE POSSIBILITY OF
32 .\" @(#)whereis.1 from UCB 4.2
33 .TH WHEREIS 1 "October 2014" "util-linux" "User Commands"
35 whereis \- locate the binary, source, and manual page files for a command
40 .IR directory "... " \fB\-f\fR ]
44 locates the binary, source and manual files for the specified command names.
45 The supplied names are first stripped of leading pathname components and any
46 (single) trailing extension of the form
52 resulting from use of source code control are also dealt with.
54 then attempts to locate the desired program in the standard Linux places, and
55 in the places specified by
60 The search restrictions (options \fB\-b\fP, \fB\-m\fP and \fB\-s\fP)
61 are cumulative and apply to the subsequent \fIname\fP patterns on
62 the command line. Any new search restriction resets the search mask.
66 .B "whereis \-bm ls tr \-m gcc"
69 searches for "ls" and "tr" binaries and man pages, and for "gcc" man pages only.
71 The options \fB\-B\fP, \fB\-M\fP and \fB\-S\fP reset search paths for the
72 subsequent \fIname\fP patterns. For example,
75 .B "whereis \-m ls \-M /usr/share/man/man1 \-f cal"
78 searches for "ls" man pages in all default paths, but for "cal" in
79 the /usr/share/man/man1 directory only.
90 Only show the command names that have unusual entries. A command is said to be
91 unusual if it does not have just one entry of each explicitly requested type.
93 .RB ' "whereis \-m \-u *" '
94 asks for those files in the current directory which have no documentation file,
96 .IP "\fB\-B \fIlist\fP"
97 Limit the places where
99 searches for binaries, by a whitespace-separated list of directories.
100 .IP "\fB\-M \fIlist\fP"
101 Limit the places where
103 searches for manuals and documentation in Info format, by a
104 whitespace-separated list of directories.
105 .IP "\fB\-S \fIlist\fP"
106 Limit the places where
108 searches for sources, by a whitespace-separated list of directories.
110 Terminates the directory list and signals the start of filenames. It
112 be used when any of the
119 Output the list of effective lookup paths that
121 is using. When none of
126 is specified, the option will output the hard-coded paths
127 that the command was able to find on the system.
129 \fB\-h\fR, \fB\-\-help\fR
130 Display help text and exit.
132 \fB\-V\fR, \fB\-\-version\fR
133 Display version information and exit.
137 which are not documented
145 .B whereis \-u \-ms \-M /usr/man/man1 \-S /usr/src \-f *
146 .SH "FILE SEARCH PATHS"
149 tries to find files from hard-coded paths, which are defined with glob
150 patterns. The command attempts to use the contents of
154 environment variables as default search path. The easiest way to know
155 what paths are in use is to add the
157 listing option. Effects of the
166 .IP WHEREIS_DEBUG=all
167 enables debug output.
169 The whereis command is part of the util-linux package and is available from
170 .UR https://\:www.kernel.org\:/pub\:/linux\:/utils\:/util-linux/