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MAKEWHATIS(1)		FreeBSD General Commands Manual 	 MAKEWHATIS(1)

NAME
     makewhatis -- create whatis database

SYNOPSIS
     makewhatis [-a | -append] [-h | -help] [-i | -indent column]
		[-L | -locale] [-n | -name name] [-o | -outfile file]
		[-v | -verbose] [directories ...]

DESCRIPTION
     makewhatis extracts the name and a short description from unformatted
     manpages and creates the whatis(1) database.  makewhatis can read gzip'ed
     manpages.	Directory names a directory containing manpage subdirectories
     (named man.+).  Colons are treated as spaces, hence makewhatis $MANPATH
     or makewhatis `manpath` are allowed.

OPTIONS
     -a, -append
	     Append mode. Don't delete old entries in whatis database. Note:
	     the new database will be sorted without repeated lines and
	     makewhatis does not check if old entries are valid.

     -h, -help
	     Print options and exit.

     -i, -indent column
	     Justify description strings to column (default 24).

     -L, -locale
	     Sense locale environment variables for possible localized man
	     subdirectories and process this entries only.

     -n, -name name
	     Use name instead of whatis.

     -o, -outfile file
	     Write all output to file instead of dirname/whatis.

     -v, -verbose
	     Issue more warnings (to stderr).  For every parsed man page write
	     a single char: `.' for an uncompressed page, `*' for a compressed
	     page, and `+' for a link.

EXAMPLES
     makewhatis $MANPATH

     Create whatis database for all directories in your $MANPATH.

     makewhatis -outfile /tmp/mywhatis /usr/local/man $HOME/man

     Create whatis database /tmp/mywhatis.  Traverse directories
     /usr/local/man and $HOME/man.  Don't create /usr/local/man/whatis or
     $HOME/man/whatis.

     makewhatis -name windex $HOME/man

     Create whatis database windex instead of whatis.  May be useful for
     Solaris.

FILES
     */man/whatis	   whatis database
     /etc/periodic/weekly/320.whatis
			   run makewhatis.local every week

SEE ALSO
     apropos(1), catman(1), getNAME(1), man(1), manpath(1), sort(1), uniq(1),
     whatis(1), makewhatis.local(8)

HISTORY
     This makewhatis command appeared in FreeBSD 2.1.

AUTHORS
     Wolfram Schneider, Berlin.

FreeBSD 4.9		       January 12, 1995 		   FreeBSD 4.9

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