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/.