NAME

     makewhatis - build the whatis(5) database


SYNOPSIS

     makewhatis directory


DESCRIPTION

     Makewhatis makes the whatis(5) database in the given  manual
     page  directory.   This  database  is  used by man(1) to map
     titles to manual page names and by  whatis(1)  to  give  one
     line  descriptions.  See whatis(5) for a description of what
     a whatis database should look like and the restrictions that
     are  placed on the NAME sections so that makewhatis can make
     whatis lines out of the manual pages.


SEE ALSO

     whatis(5).


BUGS

     Removing only font and size changes from the NAME section is
     often not enough.


AUTHOR

     Kees J. Bot (kjb@cs.vu.nl)