Command: whatis
Displays descriptions of programs based on the Appinfo (.LSM)
files.
Use APROPOS to find programs that are appropriate for the given
subject.
Use WHATIS with a program name to get a one line description of that
program.
Use WHATIS without a program name to get a one line description of
all the external programs and utilities in your FreeDOS installation.
Internal commands (commands of command.com) are not displayed.
Syntax:
APROPOS [options] subject
Find commands related to the given subject
WHATIS [options] [command]
Displays a one-line description of the given command.
If no command is specified, all commands and their
one-line descriptions are listed
WHATIS /B [options]
Rebuilds the whatis database for use with WHATIS and APROPOS
Options:
/S [path] Non-default path to the lsm appinfo files.
/D [path] Non-default path for whatis database location.
/? Shows the help.
Comments:
These are FreeDOS clones of the GNU/Linux commands "apropos and whatis"
APROPOS and WHATIS base their help on the lsm files stored in the
APPINFO directory. They are parts of FSUITE04 which also contains
APROPOS.
The first time it is run, APROPOS / WHATIS builds a database and stores
it in the help directory in the FreeDOS installation. This database can
be recreated by using:
WHATIS /B
Examples:
apropos edit Will display a list of editors.
apropos disk Will display a list of disk utilities.
whatis edit Will display short information about edit.
whatis Will display short information about the DOS commands.
See also:
amb
ambhelp
ambpack
apropos
fasthelp/fdhelp/fsuite/fsuite04
help/htmlhelp
How to use the Help
Newbies01
Newbies02
Copyright © 2003 Robert Platt, updated 2007, 2020 and 2022
by W. Spiegl.
This file is derived from the FreeDOS Spec Command HOWTO.
See the file H2Cpying for copying conditions.