NAME

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

SYNOPSIS

       whereis [options] [-BMS directory... -f] name...

DESCRIPTION

       whereis  locates the binary, source and manual files for the specified command names.  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
       the standard Linux places, and in the places specified by $PATH and $MANPATH.

       The search restrictions (options -b, -m and -s) are cumulative and apply to the subsequent
       name patterns on the command line.  Any new search restriction  resets  the  search  mask.
       For example,

              whereis -bm ls tr -m gcc

       searches for "ls" and "tr" binaries and man pages, and for "gcc" man pages only.

       The  options  -B,  -M  and  -S  reset  search paths for the subsequent name patterns.  For
       example,

              whereis -m ls -M /usr/share/man/man1 -f cal

       searches for "ls" man pages in all default paths, but for "cal" in the /usr/share/man/man1
       directory only.

OPTIONS

       -b     Search for binaries.

       -m     Search for manuals.

       -s     Search for sources.

       -u     Only  show  the  command  names that have unusual entries.  A command is said to be
              unusual if it does not have just one entry of each explicitly requested type.  Thus
              'whereis  -m  -u  *'  asks  for  those files in the current directory which have no
              documentation file, or more than one.

       -B list
              Limit the places where whereis searches for  binaries,  by  a  whitespace-separated
              list of directories.

       -M list
              Limit  the  places  where  whereis  searches  for manuals and documentation in Info
              format, by a whitespace-separated list of directories.

       -S list
              Limit the places where whereis searches for sources, by a whitespace-separated list
              of directories.

       -f     Terminates  the directory list and signals the start of filenames.  It must be used
              when any of the -B, -M, or -S options is used.

       -l     Output the list of effective lookup paths that whereis is using.  When none of  -B,
              -M,  or  -S  is  specified,  the  option  will output the hard-coded paths that the
              command was able to find on the system.

       -h, --help
              Display help text and exit.

       -V, --version
              Display version information and exit.

EXAMPLE

       To find all files in /usr/bin which are not documented in /usr/man/man1 or have no  source
       in /usr/src:

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

FILE SEARCH PATHS

       By  default whereis tries to find files from hard-coded paths, which are defined with glob
       patterns.  The command attempts to use the contents  of  $PATH  and  $MANPATH  environment
       variables as default search path.  The easiest way to know what paths are in use is to add
       the -l listing option.  Effects of the -B, -M, and -S are displayed with -l.

ENVIRONMENT

       WHEREIS_DEBUG=all
              enables debug output.

AVAILABILITY

       The whereis command is part of the util-linux package and is available from  Linux  Kernel
       Archive ⟨https://www.kernel.org/pub/linux/utils/util-linux/⟩.