WHAT(1)

NAME
what - identify SCCS keyword strings in files

SYNOPSIS
what [-qs] [--debug] [--help|-?] [--version] [--] [file ...]

DESCRIPTION
The what utility searches each specified file for sequences of the form “@(#)” as inserted by the SCCS source code control system. It prints the remainder of the string following this marker, up to a NUL character, newline, double quote, ‘>’ character, or backslash.

  OPTIONS
The following options are available:

-q  Only output the match text, rather than formatting it

-s  Stop searching each file after the first match

--debug
    Enable debug mode

--help|-?
    Print usage and this help message and exit

--version
    Print version and exit

--  Options processing terminator

ENVIRONMENT
The WHAT_DEBUG environment variable can be set to any value to enable debug mode.

The FLAVOUR or WHAT_FLAVOUR environment variables can be set to one of the following values, to implement only the corresponding options and behaviours.

•   posix : POSIX what

•   bsd | bsd:freebsd : FreeBSD what(1)

•   linux : Linux what(1P)

However, if the POSIXLY_CORRECT environment variable is set to any value, then the POSIX flavour will be selected.

EXIT STATUS
Exit status is 0 if any matches were found, otherwise 1.

SEE ALSO
ident(1), strings(1)

STANDARDS
The what utility is a standard UNIX/POSIX command.

It conforms to p1003.1-2001. The -q option is a non-standard FreeBSD extension which may not be available on other operating systems.

This re-implementation tries to follow the PEP 8 style guide for Python code.

PORTABILITY
Tested OK under Windows.

HISTORY
The what command appeared in UNIX Programmer's Workbench (PWB/UNIX) 1.0 in 1977, and was probably written by Marc J. Rochkind along with the rest of the Source Code Control System (SCCS).

The BSD version appeared in 4.0BSD in October 1980 and was rewritten because SCCS was not licensed with AT&T UNIX.

This re-implementation was made for the PNU project: https://github.com/HubTou/PNU

LICENSE
It is available under the 3-clause BSD license.

AUTHORS
Hubert Tournier

This manual page is based on the one written for FreeBSD.