Name

whereis − locate source, binary, and or manual for program

Syntax

whereis [−sbm] [−u] [−SBM dir... −f] name...

Description

The whereis command 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. The whereis command then attempts to locate the desired program in a list of standard places.

Options

−S dir
Search for source files in specified directory.

−B dir
Search for binary files in given directory.

−M dir
Search for manual section files in given directory.

−bSearches only for binary files. 

−fTerminates last directory list created from use of −S, −B or −M flags and signals the start of file names. 

−m
Searches only for manual section files.

−sSearches only for source files. 

−uSearches for files that do not have one of binary, source or manual section files.  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. 

Examples

The following finds all the files in /usr/ucb which are not documented in /usr/man/man1 with source in /usr/src/cmd:

cd /usr/ucb
whereis −u −M /usr/man/man1 −S /usr/src/cmd −f *

Restrictions

Since the program uses chdir() to run faster, pathnames given with the −M −S and −B must be full.  That is, they must begin with a “/”. 

Files

/usr/src/*
/usr/{doc,man}/*
/lib, /etc, /usr/{lib,bin,ucb,old,new,local}