whereis

WHEREIS(1)                       User Commands                      WHEREIS(1)

NAME
       whereis  -  locate the binary, source, and manual page files for a com-
       mand

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 path-
       name 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  de-
       sired 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  ap-
       ply  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 com-
              mand 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 documen-
              tation  in Info format, by a whitespace-separated list of direc-
              tories.

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

       -f     Terminates  the  directory  list  and signals the start of file-
              names.  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/>.

util-linux                       October 2014                       WHEREIS(1)