misc-utils/whereis.1

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  32 .\" @(#)whereis.1 from UCB 4.2
  33 .TH WHEREIS 1 "October 2014" "util-linux" "User Commands"
  34 .SH NAME
  35 whereis \- locate the binary, source, and manual page files for a command
  36 .SH SYNOPSIS
  37 .B whereis
  38 [options]
  39 .RB [ \-BMS
  40 .IR directory "... " \fB\-f\fR ]
  41 .IR name ...
  42 .SH DESCRIPTION
  43 .B whereis
  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
  47 .BI . ext
  48 (for example:
  49 .BR .c )
  50 Prefixes of
  51 .B s.
  52 resulting from use of source code control are also dealt with.
  53 .B whereis
  54 then attempts to locate the desired program in the standard Linux places, and
  55 in the places specified by
  56 .B $PATH
  57 and
  58 .BR $MANPATH .
  59 .sp
  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.
  63 For example,
  64 .RS
  65 .sp
  66 .B "whereis -bm ls tr -m gcc"
  67 .sp
  68 .RE
  69 searches for "ls" and "tr" binaries and man pages, and for "gcc" man pages only.
  70 .sp
  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,
  73 .RS
  74 .sp
  75 .B "whereis -m ls -M /usr/share/man/man1 -f cal"
  76 .sp
  77 .RE
  78 searches for "ls" man pages in all default paths, but for "cal" in
  79 the /usr/share/man/man1 directory only.
  80
  81 .SH OPTIONS
  82 .TP
  83 .IP \fB\-b\fP
  84 Search for binaries.
  85 .IP \fB\-m\fP
  86 Search for manuals.
  87 .IP \fB\-s\fP
  88 Search for sources.
  89 .IP \fB\-u\fP
  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.
  92 Thus
  93 .RB ' "whereis \-m \-u *" '
  94 asks for those files in the current directory which have no documentation file,
  95 or more than one.
  96 .IP "\fB\-B \fIlist\fP"
  97 Limit the places where
  98 .B whereis
  99 searches for binaries, by a whitespace-separated list of directories.
 100 .IP "\fB\-M \fIlist\fP"
 101 Limit the places where
 102 .B whereis
 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
 107 .B whereis
 108 searches for sources, by a whitespace-separated list of directories.
 109 .IP "\fB\-f\fP"
 110 Terminates the directory list and signals the start of filenames.  It
 111 .I must
 112 be used when any of the
 113 .BR \-B ,
 114 .BR \-M ,
 115 or
 116 .BR \-S
 117 options is used.
 118 .IP "\fB\-l"
 119 Output the list of effective lookup paths that
 120 .B whereis
 121 is using.  When none of
 122 .BR \-B ,
 123 .BR \-M ,
 124 or
 125 .BR \-S
 126 is specified, the option will output the hard-coded paths
 127 that the command was able to find on the system.
 128 .SH EXAMPLE
 129 To find all files in
 130 .B /usr/\:bin
 131 which are not documented
 132 in
 133 .B /usr/\:man/\:man1
 134 or have no source in
 135 .BR /usr/\:src :
 136 .IP
 137 .B cd /usr/bin
 138 .br
 139 .B whereis \-u \-ms \-M /usr/man/man1 \-S /usr/src \-f *
 140 .SH "FILE SEARCH PATHS"
 141 By default
 142 .B whereis
 143 tries to find files from hard-coded paths, which are defined with glob
 144 patterns.  The command attempst to use contents of
 145 .B $PATH
 146 and
 147 .B $MANPATH
 148 environment variables as default search path.  The easiest way to know
 149 what paths are in use is to add
 150 .B \-l
 151 listing option.  Effects of the
 152 .BR \-B ,
 153 .BR \-M ,
 154 and
 155 .BR \-S
 156 are display with
 157 .BR \-l .
 158 .PP
 159 .SH ENVIRONMENT
 160 .IP WHEREIS_DEBUG=all
 161 enables debug output.
 162 .SH AVAILABILITY
 163 The whereis command is part of the util-linux package and is available from
 164 .UR ftp://\:ftp.kernel.org\:/pub\:/linux\:/utils\:/util-linux/
 165 Linux Kernel Archive
 166 .UE .