apropos displays the man page name, section number, and a short description for each man page whose NAME line contains keyword. This information is contained in the /usr/man/whatis database created by catman.8 If catman.8 was not run, or was run with the -n option, apropos fails. Each word is considered separately and the case of letters is ignored. Words which are part of other words are considered; for example, when looking for `compile', apropos finds all instances of `compiler' also.
apropos is actually just the -k option to the man.1 command.
Try
example% apropos password
and
example% apropos editor
If the line starts `filename(section) ...' you can do `man section filename' to display the man page for filename. Try
example% apropos format
and then
example% man 3s printf
to get the manual page on the subroutine printf().
Created by unroff & hp-tools. © somebody (See intro for details). All Rights Reserved. Last modified 11/5/97