whence — Tell how the shell interprets a command name
Format
whence [–v] name …
Description
whence tells how the shell would interpret each name if used as a command name. Shell keywords, aliases, functions, built-in commands, and executable files are distinguished. For executable files, the full path name is given. If the executable file is a tracked alias, the string identifies it as cached.
Options
- –v
- Gives a more verbose report.
Usage notes
whence is a built-in shell command.
Localization
whence uses
the following localization environment variables:
- LANG
- LC_ALL
- LC_MESSAGES
- NLSPATH
See Localization for more information.
Exit values
- 0
- Successful completion
- 1
- Command name could not be found
- 2
- Failure due to an incorrect command-line argument
Portability
POSIX.2.
Related information
command, sh