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apropos – Display Appropriate Commands
It is also possible to search the list of man pages for possible matches based on a search term. It's very crude but sometimes helpful. Here is an example of a search for man pages using the search term “floppy”:
[me@linuxbox ~]$ apropos floppy
create_floppy_devices (8) - udev callout to create all possible
floppy device based on the CMOS type
fdformat | (8) | - Low-level formats a floppy disk |
floppy | (8) | - format floppy disks |
gfloppy | (1) | - a simple floppy formatter for the GNOME |
mbadblocks | (1) | - tests a floppy disk, and marks the bad |
blocks in the FAT | ||
mformat | (1) | - add an MSDOS filesystem to a low-level |
formatted floppy disk |
The first field in each line of output is the name of the man page, the second field shows the section. Note that the man command with the “-k” option performs the exact same function as apropos.