xenial (1) whereis.1.gz

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.

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  ⟨ftp://
       ftp.kernel.org/pub/linux/utils/util-linux/⟩.