Manual: whereis

WHEREIS(1)					User Commands					  WHEREIS(1)

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
	   Display 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 .

AVAILABILITY
       The whereis command is part of the util-linux package which can be downloaded from Linux Kernel
       Archive .

util-linux 2.41.3				 2025-12-15					  WHEREIS(1)