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whereis - locate the binary, source, and manual page files for a command

Availability

       The whereis command is part of the util-linux package which can be downloaded from Linux Kernel Archive
       <https://www.kernel.org/pub/linux/utils/util-linux/>.

util-linux 2.40.2                                  2024-04-24                                         WHEREIS(1)

Description

whereis locates the binary, source and manual files for the specified command names. The supplied names
       are firststrippedofleadingpathnamecomponents. Prefixes of s. resulting from use of source code
       control are also dealt with. whereis then attempts to locate the desired 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 apply to the subsequent name patterns
       on the command line. Any new search restriction resets the search mask. For example,

          whereis-bmlstr-mgcc

       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-mls-M/usr/share/man/man1-fcal

       searches for "ls" man pages in all default paths, but for "cal" in the /usr/share/man/man1 directory
       only.

Environment

WHEREIS_DEBUG=all
           enables debug output.

Examples

       To find all files in /usr/bin which are not documented in /usr/man/man1 or have no source in /usr/src:

          cd/usr/binwhereis-u-ms-M/usr/man/man1-S/usr/src-f*

Name

       whereis - locate the binary, source, and manual page files for a command

Options

-b
           Search for binaries.

       -m
           Search for manuals.

       -s
           Search 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.

       -Blist
           Limit the places where whereis searches for binaries, by a whitespace-separated list of directories.

       -Mlist
           Limit the places where whereis searches for manuals and documentation in Info format, by a
           whitespace-separated list of directories.

       -Slist
           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 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.

       -g
           Interpret the next names as a glob(7) patterns. whereis always compares only filenames (aka basename)
           and never complete path. Using directory names in the pattern has no effect. Don’t forget that the
           shell interprets the pattern when specified on the command line without quotes. It’s necessary to use
           quotes for the name, for example:

              whereis -g 'find*'

       -h, --help
           Display help text and exit.

       -V, --version
           Print version and exit.

Reporting Bugs

       For bug reports, use the issue tracker at https://github.com/util-linux/util-linux/issues.

Synopsis

whereis [options] [-BMSdirectory... -f] name...

See Also