NAME

       whereis - locate the binary, source, and manual page files for a command

SYNOPSIS

       whereis [-bmsu] [-BMS directory...  -f] filename...

DESCRIPTION

       whereis  locates  source/binary  and  manuals sections for specified files.  The supplied names are first
       stripped of leading pathname components and any  (single)  trailing  extension  of  the  form  .ext,  for
       example,  .c.   Prefixes  of  s.  resulting from use of source code control are also dealt with.  whereis
       then attempts to locate the desired program in a list of standard Linux places.

OPTIONS

       -b     Search only for binaries.

       -m     Search only for manual sections.

       -s     Search only for sources.

       -u     Search for unusual entries.  A file is said to be unusual if it does not have one  entry  of  each
              requested  type.   Thus  `whereis  -m  -u  *'  asks for those files in the current directory which
              have no documentation.

       -B     Change or otherwise limit the places where whereis searches for binaries.

       -M     Change or otherwise limit the places where whereis searches for manual sections.

       -S     Change or otherwise limit the places where whereis searches for sources.

       -f     Terminate the last directory list and signals the start of file names, and must be used  when  any
              of the -B, -M, or -S options are used.

EXAMPLE

       Find all files in /usr/bin which are not documented in /usr/man/man1 with source in /usr/src:

              example% cd /usr/bin
              example% whereis -u -M /usr/man/man1 -S /usr/src -f *

FILES

       /{bin,sbin,etc}

       /usr/{lib,bin,old,new,local,games,include,etc,src,man,sbin,
                           X386,TeX,g++-include}

       /usr/local/{X386,TeX,X11,include,lib,man,etc,bin,games,emacs}

SEE ALSO

       chdir(2V)

BUGS

       Since whereis uses chdir(2V) to run faster, pathnames given with the -M, -S, or -B must be full; that is,
       they must begin with a `/'.

       whereis has a hard-coded path, so may not always find what you're looking for.

AVAILABILITY

       The    whereis    command    is    part    of    the   util-linux   package   and   is   available   from
       ftp://ftp.kernel.org/pub/linux/utils/util-linux/.

util-linux                                          July 2009                                         WHEREIS(1)