Category

Linux Command


Usage

whereis [-bmsu] [-BMS directory... -f] filename...


Manual

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, and in the  places  specified by $PATH and $MANPATH.

  • -b: Search only for binaries.
  • -m: Search only for manuals.
  • -s: Search only 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, 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 list of effective lookup paths the whereis is using. When non of -B, -M, or -S is specified the option will out hard coded paths that the command was able to find on system.


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