# whatis(5)

    NAME
         whatis - database of online manual pages

    SYNOPSIS
         /usr/man/*/whatis
         /usr/man/whatis

    DESCRIPTION
         The whatis file in each manual page directory is a database of titles for
         manual  pages.   This  database is used by man(1) to map titles to manual
         pages names.  The database is created  by  makewhatis(1)  from  the  NAME
         sections of the manual pages.

         The NAME secions must be  simple  lines  with  no  troff  fluff  but  one
         backslash like these two:

              whatis \- database of online manual pages
              cawf, nroff \- C  version  of  the  nroff-like,  Amazingly  Workable
              (text) Formatter

         These lines are transformed by makewhatis to  these  two  lines  for  the
         database:

              cawf, nroff (1) - C version of the  nroff-like,  Amazingly  Workable
              (text) Formatter
              whatis (5) - database of online manual pages

         As you can see they are in section number order,  so  that  man  searches
         them in section order.

         Each entry is just a single line,  restricting  the  NAME  section  to  a
         single line too with just one dash, and commas and spaces before the dash
         as you see above.

    SEE ALSO
         man(1), whatis(1), makewhatis(1), man(7).

    BUGS
         It seems to be impossible for many manual page writers to keep  the  NAME
         section  simple.   They  also  like  to use every font available in their
         documents.  My simple scripts can't read their NAME sections,  my  simple
         me can't read their texts.

    AUTHOR
         Kees J. Bot (kjb@cs.vu.nl)