type

Display information about command type.

• type [EN] @ Wikipedia

Documentation

• type [EN] @ GNU Bash Reference Manual

• bash -c 'help type'
• man 1 'bash' [EN]

Syntax

type [PARAMETER ...] NAME [NAME ...]

Parameters

-a

Display all locations containing an executable named NAME; includes aliases, builtins, and functions, if and only if the -p option is not also used.

-f

Suppress shell function lookup.

-p

Returns either the name of the disk file that would be executed, or nothing if type -t NAME would not return file.

-P

Force a PATH search for each NAME, even if it is an alias, builtin, or function, and returns the name of the disk file that would be executed.

-t

Output a single word which is one of alias, keyword, function, builtin, file or nothing, if NAME is an alias, shell reserved word, shell function, shell builtin, disk file, or not found, respectively.

Examples

Test if a shell binary exists

if type -P "${bin}" >'/dev/null' 2>&1; then
  echo "Binary '${bin}' exists"
else
  echo "Binary '${bin}' does not exist"
fi