

				APROPOS

		   A keyword lookup system for man-pages


This software distribution contains two programs that are a nice addition
to the existing on-line help system for the IRIX operating system used on
SGI IRIS 4D workstations.  The concept of "apropos" is similar to that of
Berkeley Unix operating systems.


makewhatis		Usage:   makewhatis		(sysadmin access only)

		Collect the header lines of all man-pages into one big
		database file called "whatis".  This must be run once
		before the apropos command will work.  Rerun it each time
		you install new manual pages, or just tell cron to run it
		every night, or every few days.


apropos			Usage:   apropos keyword	(general user access)

		Search the "whatis" database file for a keyword or string.
		Case insensitive (see "grep" command used internally.)
		You will probably want to alias this to something like "ap",
		since "apropos" is not easy to remember.


The "whatis" database should take up no more than 100K on an average Iris.
It is left uncompressed so that searching it will be speedy.  As distributed,
both programs try to find the "whatis" file in /usr/local/lib, but this
can be changed.

The programs are Bourne Shell scripts which were written from scratch by me,
and have been placed in the public domain.  You may copy them, use them,
and give them to anyone who wants it.  Just be sure to pass along the entire
package including both programs, the Makefile, and this README text file.

This software has been tested on IRIS hardware:
	Personal Iris [4D20], Personal Iris [4D25GT/Turbo]

This software has been tested on IRIX versions:
	3.2, 3.2.1, 3.2.3

Please send any comments, bug reports, corrections, and porting info to:
	Internet:	pab@naucse.cse.nau.edu
	UUCP:		arizona!naucse!pab
