On Fri, 2022-07-08 at 08:37 -0500, Albretch Mueller wrote: > it seemed to have been somehow > blanketed by my "unconscious" that bash utils needed to be declared in > the PATH in order for you to access them.
'which' isn't a 'bash util' whatever that is (presumably you mean a shell built-in). As you've found out, 'which' is an external program. To find out how the shell thinks about out a command, use the 'type' command... $ type which which is /usr/bin/which $ type type type is a shell builtin $ type foobar bash: type: foobar: not found $ type which which is hashed (/usr/bin/which) In the last, 'hashed' sorta means 'cached' so it doesn't have to search the whole path again to find it. From the posix standard [1]... an implementation may remember its location and need not search for the utility again unless the PATH variable has been the subject of an assignment. If the remembered location fails for a subsequent invocation, the shell shall repeat the search to find the new location for the utility, if any. [1] https://pubs.opengroup.org/onlinepubs/9699919799.2018edition/utilities/V3_chap02.html#tag_18_09_01_01 -- Tixy
