makewhatis(1M)

NAME
     makewhatis, manwhat - make manual page "whatis" database for use with
     apropos

SYNOPSIS
     /usr/lib/makewhatis [-M manpath] [filename]

DESCRIPTION
     makewhatis scans the manual page (also known as reference page) trees,
     parses the manual pages, and strips out the NAME section information to
     create the "whatis" database used by apropos(1), man(1), and whatis(1).

     By default, makewhatis creates the file /usr/share/catman/whatis.
     Another file can be created as the database by specifying its filename on
     the command line.

     An alternate manual page tree can be specified by using the -M option to
     specify a path or paths to a manual page tree or trees.  See the
     discussion of the -M option in man(1) for more details.

     The format of the "whatis" file is based on that used by William Joy's UC
     Berkeley version of apropos.

ENVIRONMENT
     The environment variables used by man(1) apply to makewhatis.

SEE ALSO
     awf(1), apropos(1), man(1), sgindexAdmin(1), whatis(1).

FILES
     /usr/share/catman          manual page tree
     /usr/share/catman/whatis   "whatis" database
     /usr/lib/manwhat The specialized version of the man(1) program that is
     used to build the database.

CAVEATS
     Expect execution times of about 10-30 minutes, depending on the number of
     manual pages installed.  The reason is that the first portion of EVERY
     manual page on the system is read.

     If unformatted (nroff source) man pages are present, the dwb product
     should be installed, or makewhatis may issues warning messages, because
     it falls back on an awk script called awf(1) that emulates nroff -man.

     You must run makewhatis as root.

NOTE
     This program is run automatically in the background during system bootup,
     whenever products have been installed or removed (when /var/inst/hist is
     newer than /usr/s), from the script /etc/init.d.configmsg.  As of the
     IRIX 6.5 release, the sgindexAdmin(1) program will run first, and use the
     installed information where possible, to reduce runtime.  Only if that
     program is not found, or fails, will makewhatis run to build the
     database.

     Manual pages in source form that use the .so directive will cause
     makewhatis to complain that the other file can't be found, unless it is a
     full pathname.