UNIX Shells by Example (4th Edition)

apropos ”searches the whatis database for strings

apropos keyword ...

apropos searches a set of database files (see directory /usr/man/whatis ) containing short descriptions of system commands for keywords and displays the result on the standard output. Same as man -k .

Example A.1.

1 $ apropos bash bash (1) - GNU Bourne-Again SHell 2 $ man -k tcsh tsh (1) - C shell with filename completionand command-line editing

EXPLANATION

1. apropos searches for the keyword bash and prints a short description of what it is.

2. man -k behaves the same as apropos.