whereis

Locate the binary, source, and manual page files for a command

Description

The whereis command is used to locate the binary, source, and manual page files for specified commands.

The whereis command only searches for programs and restricts its search to binary files (option -b), manual pages (option -m), and source code files (option -s). If no options are provided, all information is returned.

Compared to find, whereis is much faster because it searches a database containing information about all files in the system, rather than traversing the hard drive. However, this database is not updated in real-time (typically once a week), so whereis might return paths for deleted files or fail to find newly created ones.

Syntax

whereis [options] [command_name]

Options

-b  Search only for binaries.
-B <directory>  Limit the search for binaries to the specified directory.
-f  Terminate the directory list and signal the start of filenames.
-m  Search only for manual pages.
-M <directory>  Limit the search for manual pages to the specified directory.
-s  Search only for source files.
-S <directory>  Limit the search for source files to the specified directory.
-u  Search for unusual entries (commands that don't have exactly one entry of each requested type).

Parameters

command_name: The name of the command to locate.

Examples

Find all related files:

[root@localhost ~]# whereis tomcat
tomcat:

[root@localhost ~]# whereis svn
svn: /usr/bin/svn /usr/local/svn /usr/share/man/man1/svn.1.gz

Locate only binaries:

[root@localhost ~]# whereis -b svn
svn: /usr/bin/svn /usr/local/svn

Locate only manual pages:

[root@localhost ~]# whereis -m svn
svn: /usr/share/man/man1/svn.1.gz

Locate only source files:

[root@localhost ~]# whereis -s svn
svn: