Bash Quick Start Guide

The type command

The type command, given the name of any command or commands, gives you information about what kind of command it is:

bash$ type echo
echo is a shell builtin
bash$ type grep
grep is /bin/grep

It identifies shell keyword, too:

bash$ type for
for is a shell keyword

We can define a function and an alias to test that it correctly detects those:

bash$ myfunc() { : ; }
bash$ type myfunc
myfunc is a functionmyfunc (){    :}bash$ alias myalias=:
bash$ type myalias
myalias is aliased to `:'

The type command has a few useful options. If you use the -t option, you can get a single word specifying the command type. This is sometimes useful in scripts:

bash$ type -t echo
builtin
bash$ type -t grep
file

If you use the -a option, you can see ...