Locating Commands

- 2 mins read

Getting the location of commands in Unix

Unix Shells

AFAIK, there are four ways to find out where a command is in your path.

Shell Builtins

  • command -v (POSIX shell way)

    • Shows the command that would be run by your shell (without actually running it)

  • type [-afptP] (bash builtin way)

    • Essentially the same function as command, but with more options

Both command and type can output the location of any executable, script, alias, or shell builtin in your $PATH and your shell environment.

System Executables

Found in /bin/, /usr/bin/, or /usr/local/bin/

  • which

    • Exclusively searches for executables/scripts in $PATH (unless provided extra options)

  • whereis

    • Same function as which. Can also show location of the man pages

I find using command -v is a common way to check if a command exists in shell scripts, while type -a is handy for occasions when I’m unsure if something is a shell function/alias and which if I’m sure it is in $PATH.

Specifically, finding what type of file a command is using file $(which COMMAND)

Getting the location of commands in Windows/DOS

cmd.exe

In cmd, there is one way to find the location of a given command:

  • where.exe
    • Finds executables in %PATH% or the current directory

PowerShell

where.exe can still be called in PowerShell, but there is also a cmdlet available to get PowerShell commands and executables.

  • Get-Command
    • alias: gcm

Reasons

Security

There are all kinds of security reasons to double check that the commands run in a shell are in the right spot. Supposing somebody gained user access on your machine, they could modify your .bashrc and your $PATH to run any program with ls without you ever knowing until it’s too late.

Duplicate Programs

There are circumstances when there are multiple programs of the same name in $PATH.

Getting Bearings

Although the FHS standard exists and is mostly conformed to, there are near infinite ways to layout a Linux file system. Executables can be anywhere. On Windows, the %PATH% variable is still important for doing command line stuff, but most of the time programs are launched from Explorer, and the complexity of “which program do I use to open a file” is stored in the Registry or in context menus and can be edited accordingly.