MAKEWHATIS(8) MAKEWHATIS(8)

NAME
       makewhatis - Create the whatis database

SYNOPSIS
       mmaakkeewwhhaattiiss [[-uu]] [[-vv]] [[-ww]] [[-ss sections ]] [[-cc [[catpath]]]] [[manpath]]

DESCRIPTION
       mmaakkeewwhhaattiiss  reads  all the manual pages contained in the given sections
       of manpath or the preformatted pages contained in the given sections of
       catpath.   For each page, it writes a line in the whatis database; each
       line consists of the name of the page and a  short  description,  sepa-
       rated  by a dash. The description is extracted using the content of the
       NAME section of the manual page.

       Since other languages use a different term for the NAME section,  mmaakkee-
       wwhhaattiiss  recognizes  the  equivalent  terms  in Czech, Italian, Finnish,
       French, German and Spanish.

       If no manpath argument is given, /usr/man is assumed by default.

OOPPTTIIOONNSS
       -uu     Update database with new pages.

       -vv     Verbose output

       -ww     Use manpath obtained from `man -path`

       -ss sections
              Looks in the sections of manpath or catpath.  If the  option  is
              absent, its value is assumed to be '1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 n l'

       -cc catpath
              The preformatted manual pages located in catpath are scanned. If
              the argument is not provided, it is  assumed  to  be  the  first
              existing directory between /usr/man/preformat and /usr/man.

EEXXAAMMPPLLEESS
       To rebuild only /usr/X11R6/man/whatis and /usr/local/man/whatis

              makewhatis /usr/X11R6/man /usr/local/man

       To  rebuild  all  the databases, including those of the Finnish, French
       and Italian translations

              LANGUAGE=fi:fr:it makewhatis -w

BUGS
       mmaakkeewwhhaattiiss may not handle too well manual pages written with  non-stan-
       dard troff macros, such as the Tcl/Tk pages.

       mmaakkeewwhhaattiiss does not work on preformatted translations.

SEE ALSO
       aapprrooppooss(1), mmaann(1), wwhhaattiiss(1)



                                22 January 1999                  MAKEWHATIS(8)