makewhatis(1)

NAME

makewhatis - create whatis database

makewhatis [-a] [-i column] [-n name] [-o file] [-v] [-L]
           [directories ...]

The makewhatis utility collects the names and short descrip
tions from all the unformatted man pages in the directories and puts them
into a file used by the whatis(1) and apropos(1) commands. Directories
may be separated by colons instead of spaces. If no directories are
specified, the contents of the MANPATH environment variable will be used,
or if that is not set, the default directory /usr/share/man will be pro
cessed.
The options are as follows:
-a Appends to the output file(s) instead of
replacing them.: The output will be sorted with duplicate; lines removed,
but may have obsolete entries.
-i column Indents the description by column charac
ters. The: default value is 24.
-n name Uses name instead of whatis.
-o file Outputs all lines to the file instead of
*/man/whatis.
-v Makes makewhatis more verbose about what it
is doing.
-L Process only localized subdirectories cor
responding to: the locale specified in the standard envi; ronment variables.

LC_ALL, LC_CTYPE, LANG: These variables control what subdirectories; will be processed if the -L option is used.
MACHINE If set, its value is used to override the cur
rent machine: type when searching machine specific subdirec; tories.
MANPATH Determines the set of directories to be pro
cessed if none: are given on the command line.

The makewhatis command appeared in FreeBSD 2.1.