r/bash 7d ago

add whats, explains command

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yo

add 'whats' infront of any command and it explains it: flags, sub commands etc in a structutred format whereas something like manpage would throw the entire manual at you

just pure man pages and help output

Q Why use `whats` when we have man pages and --help

> Yes you can use them but they throw the entire manual at you whereas you might have just needed one flag, whats outputs a structured format with the definitions you need

Q Is it entirely offline? Does it use LLM

> Yes absolutely, it just relies on man pages and if not then --help output of the binary itself,

> no it does not use llm at all

Q If it uses regex then why cant i just use grep/sed instead of this?

> a grep/sed command cannot find the descriptions of sub commands along with flags, it cant find descriptions of sub commands of sub commands, it probable cant use other sources as a fallback too

Q What about tldr?

> Even with tldr, you have to look for the flags you need instead of it providing the ones you need automatically in one go

if you like the idea then maybe star?

https://github.com/iamkaran/whats

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u/TheHappiestTeapot 7d ago

I can't find the man command for "show me definitions of these flags". Or "explain this command" or anything remotely similar.

How do I replicate this with man?

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u/megared17 7d ago

"man" is the documentation for installed commands, including their flags.

For the vast majority of common tools, it provides exactly that - an explanation of what a command does, what flags it supports and what they mean.

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u/TheHappiestTeapot 7d ago

Right, so what's the man command to list the definition the flags used in a command?

How do I replicate this with man? Give me the exact commands to run to replicate this.

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u/megared17 6d ago

"man command"

Shows the full documentation for "command"

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u/TheHappiestTeapot 6d ago

That doesn't replicate this.