The manpath utility tries to determine the user’s manpath from a set of system defaults and the user’s PATH, echoing the result to the standard output. Warnings and errors are written to the standard error. If a directory in the user’s path is not listed in the /etc/manpath.config file, manpath looks for the subdirectories man or MAN. If they exist, they are added to the search path. If they do not exist, but the directory ends in /bin, manpath replaces /bin with /man and checks if that directory exists. If it exists, it is added to the search path.

The manpath utility is used by man(1) to determine the search path, so users normally do not need to set the MANPATH environment variable directly.

The options are as follows:

• -d Output additional debug information.
• -L Output man locales list (if it exists).
• -q Operate quietly. Only echo the final result.

• MANPATH If MANPATH is set, manpath echoes its value on the standard output and issues a warning on the standard error.
• MANLOCALES If MANLOCALES is set and -L option is set, manpath echoes its value on the standard output and issues a warning on the standard error.

• /etc/manpath.config System configuration file.

apropos(1), man(1), whatis(1)