makewhatis(1)

NAME

     makewhatis - build the whatis(5) database

SYNOPSIS

     makewhatis directory

DESCRIPTION

     Makewhatis  makes  the  whatis(5)  database  in  the  given  manual  page
     directory.   This database is used by man(1) to map titles to manual page
     names and by whatis(1) to give one line descriptions.  See whatis(5)  for
     a  desciption  of  what  a  whatis  database  should  look  like  and the
     restrictions that are placed on the NAME sections so that makewhatis  can
     make whatis lines out of the manual pages.

SEE ALSO

     whatis(5).

BUGS

     Removing only font and size changes from the NAME section  is  often  not
     enough.

AUTHOR

     Kees J. Bot (kjb@cs.vu.nl)