Whereis

whereis is a command on Unix and Unix-like operating systems used to locate some special files of a command like the binary file, source and manual page files. The whereis utility was first included with 2BSD,^[1] dating back to 1979.^[2]

Syntax

The whereis man page provides the following sample usage:

% # Find all files in /usr/bin which are not documented in /usr/man/man1 with source in /usr/src:
% cd /usr/bin
% whereis -u -M /usr/man/man1 -S /usr/src -f *

Analogs

The Unix type command is similar, but it identifies aliases.

Modern versions of Microsoft Windows feature a similar command: where.^[3]

It's also similar to the where utility in Multics.

See also

• List of Unix commands
• command (shell builtin)
• which (command)
• type (Unix)
• hash (Unix)