The whereis utility locates source/binary and manuals sections for specified files. The supplied names are first stripped of leading pathname components and any (single) trailing extension of the form .ext, for example, .c. Prefixes of s. resulting from use of source code control are also dealt with. whereis then attempts to locate the desired program in a list of standard places:

etc /sbin /usr/bin /usr/ccs/bin /usr/ccs/lib /usr/lang /usr/lbin /usr/lib /usr/sbin /usr/ucb /usr/ucblib /usr/ucbinclude /usr/games /usr/local /usr/local/bin /usr/new /usr/old /usr/hosts /usr/include /usr/etc

The following options are supported:

-b

Searches only for binaries.

-B

Changes or otherwise limits the places where whereis searches for binaries.

-f

Terminates the last directory list and signals the start of file names, and must be used when any of the -B, -M, or -S options are used.

-m

Searches only for manual sections.

-M

Changes or otherwise limits the places where whereis searches for manual sections.

-s

Searches only for sources.

-S

Changes or otherwise limit the places where whereis searches for sources.

-u

Searches for unusual entries. A file is said to be unusual if it does not have one entry of each requested type. Thus `whereis -m -u *' asks for those files in the current directory which have no documentation.

/usr/src/*

/usr/{doc,man}/*

/etc, /usr/{lib,bin,ucb,old,new,local}

See attributes(5) for descriptions of the following attributes:

chdir(2), attributes(5)

Since whereis uses chdir(2) to run faster, pathnames given with the -M, -S, or -B must be full; that is, they must begin with a `/'.