apropos (Unix)

In computing, apropos is a command to search the man page files in Unix and Unix-like operating systems. apropos takes its name from the English word with the same spelling that means relevant. It is particularly useful when searching for commands without knowing their exact names.

Behavior

Often a wrapper for the man -k command, the apropos command is used to search the ”name” sections of all manual pages for the string/s (called keyword/s) specified. The output is a list of all manual pages containing the search term in their name or description. This is often useful if one knows the action that is desired, but does not remember the exact command or page name. apropos search is case insensitive.

A related command is whatis, which is useful for obtaining a brief description about a specific command whose exact name is already known.

Sample usage

The following example demonstrates the output of the apropos command:

$ apropos mount
free (1)             - Display amount of free and used memory in the system
mklost+found (8)     - create a lost+found directory on a mounted Linux second extended file system
mount (8)            - mount a file system
mountpoint (1)       - see if a directory is a mountpoint
ntfsmount (8)        - Read/Write userspace NTFS driver.
sleep (1)            - delay for a specified amount of time
switch_root (8)      - switch to another filesystem as the root of the mount tree.
umount (8)           - unmount file systems

In this example, apropos is used to search for the keyword "mount", and apropos returns the indicated man pages that include the term "mount".

The following example demonstrates the output of the apropos command with an regexp keyword (abc.n) and a regular keyword:

$ apropos abc.n xzless
XTestGrabControl (3) - XTest extension functions
xzless (1)           - view xz or lzma compressed (text) files

In this example, apropos is used to search for the keywords (with an regexp .) "abc.n" and xzless, and apropos returns the indicated man pages that include the keywords.

External links

apropos(1) – 4.2BSD General Commands Manual
apropos(1) – OpenBSD General Commands Manual
apropos(1) – FreeBSD General Commands Manual
Apropos at the LinuxQuestions.org wiki

Unix command-line interface programs and shell builtins

File system	cat chmod chown chgrp cksum cmp cp dd du df file fsck fuser ln ls mkdir mount mv pax pwd rm rmdir split tee touch type umask

Processes	at bg chroot cron fg kill killall nice pgrep pkill ps pstree time top

User environment	clear env exit finger history logname mesg passwd su sudo uptime talk tput uname w wall who whoami write

Text processing	awk banner basename comm csplit cut diff dirname ed ex fmt fold head iconv join less more nl paste printf sed sort spell strings tail tr uniq vi wc xargs yes

Shell builtins	alias cd echo test unset wait

Networking	dig host ifconfig inetd netcat netstat nslookup ping rdate rlogin route ssh traceroute

Searching	find grep locate whatis whereis

Documentation	apropos help man

Miscellaneous	bc dc cal expr lp od sleep true and false

List of Unix commands

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apropos (Unix)

Behavior

Sample usage

See also

External links