NAME

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

SYNOPSIS

       whereis [options] [-BMS directory... -f] name...

DESCRIPTION

       whereis locates the binary, source and manual files for the specified command names. The supplied names
       are first stripped of leading pathname components. 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 -bm ls tr -m gcc

       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 -m ls -M /usr/share/man/man1 -f cal

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

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.

       -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 and documentation in Info format, 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 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.

FILE SEARCH PATHS

       By default whereis tries to find files from hard-coded paths, which are defined with glob patterns. The
       command attempts to use the contents of $PATH and $MANPATH environment variables as default search path.
       The easiest way to know what paths are in use is to add the -l listing option. Effects of the -B, -M, and
       -S are displayed with -l.

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/bin
          whereis -u -ms -M /usr/man/man1 -S /usr/src -f *

REPORTING BUGS

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

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)