search for a file in PATH

which <filename>

By: Hal_Pomeranz

2009-09-12 00:51:24

which shell tr for PATH break

3 Alternatives + Submit Alt

search for a file in PATH

Also searches for aliases and shell builtins Show Sample Output
This is sample output - yours may be different.
```
root@fs3:~# type nvgui
nvgui is /usr/bin/nvgui
root@serv:~# type rm
rm is /bin/rm
root@fs3:~# type alias
alias is a shell builtin
root@serv:~# 
```
4

type <filename>

danam · 2009-09-14 09:37:23 5
search for a file in PATH

search argument in PATH accept grep expressions without args, list all binaries found in PATH Show Sample Output
This is sample output - yours may be different.
```
$ sepath noo
/usr/openwin/bin/ttsnoop
/usr/sbin/snoop
$ sepath ^ps$
/bin/ps
/usr/bin/ps
/usr/ucb/ps
```
-1

function sepath { echo $PATH |tr ":" "\n" |sort -u |while read L ; do cd "$L" 2>/dev/null && find . $ ! -name . -prune $ $ -type f -o -type l $ 2>/dev/null |sed "s@^\./@@" |egrep -i "${*}" |sed "s@^@$L/@" ; done ; }

mobidyc · 2009-09-11 15:03:22 5
search for a file in PATH

Searches in order of the directories of $PATH. Stops after finding the entry; looks for only that fileName. Works in Bourne, Korn, Bash and Z shells. Show Sample Output
This is sample output - yours may be different.
```
/usr/local/bin/fileName
```
-1

for L in `echo :$PATH | tr : '\n'`; do F=${L:-"."}/fileName; if [ -f ${F} -o -h ${F} ]; then echo ${F}; break; fi; done

arcege · 2009-09-11 16:14:36 3

What Others Think

Important distinction: according to the manpage (at least on my debian/ubuntu system) "which" searches for *executable* files in the PATH.

bwoodacre · 785 weeks and 5 days ago

after thinking about this some more if you want to tab-complete *any* file (executable and non-executable) in your path you could put source or sh in front (say you're looking for something that starts with 'a'): source a<TAB> but then this is only interactively. Non interactively you probably want argage's solution.

bwoodacre · 785 weeks and 5 days ago

rahimhh21 · 108 weeks and 5 days ago

Perfecthomepugs · 100 weeks and 2 days ago

pugpuppies95 · 62 weeks and 3 days ago

What do you think?

Any thoughts on this command? Does it work on your machine? Can you do the same thing with only 14 characters?

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