whatis looks up a given command and displays the header line from the manual section. You can then run the man.1 command to get more information. If the line starts `name(section) ...' you can do `man section name' to get the documentation for it. Try `whatis ed' and then you should do `man 1 ed' to get the manual page for ed.1
whatis is actually just the -f option to the man.1 command.
whatis uses the whatis database. This database can be created using the -w option of catman.8
whatis uses the /usr/man/whatis database, which is created by catman.8
Created by unroff & hp-tools. © somebody (See intro for details). All Rights Reserved. Last modified 11/5/97