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Re:Stupid Unix Tricks by s_gourichon on Thursday October 17, 2019 @03:10PM (#21285385)
$ help command

command: command [-pVv] command [arg ...] Execute a simple command or display information about commands.

    Runs COMMAND with ARGS suppressing  shell function lookup, or display
    information about the specified COMMANDs.  Can be used to invoke commands
    on disk when a function with the same name exists.
    
    Options:
      -p    use a default value for PATH that is guaranteed to find all of
            the standard utilities
      -v    print a description of COMMAND similar to the `type' builtin
      -V    print a more verbose description of each COMMAND
    
    Exit Status:
    Returns exit status of COMMAND, or failure if COMMAND is not found.
Re:Stupid Unix Tricks by m463 on Thursday October 17, 2019 @10:15PM (#21288080)
Thank you.

I never knew about help to describe a builtin shell command. normally searching for something like "command" in the bash man page would be very tedious.

also: help echo

Re:Stupid Unix Tricks by dTal on Saturday October 19, 2019 @07:50AM (#21298000)
How little we expect from our computers. "help <command>" should be the first thing you expect to work.
Re:Stupid Unix Tricks by imihai1988 on Friday October 18, 2019 @03:54AM (#21289451)
i do think 'man command' should bring up the specific man page for this, so there is no need to search into the bash man. this works with most builtin shell commands. e.g. 'man ls' is a thing
Re:Stupid Unix Tricks by stragies on Friday October 18, 2019 @04:57AM (#21289744)
On (at least) Debian systems (, and probably many more) `ls` is not a built-in, but an external binary (`/usr/bin/ls`) is used.

`which ls` and `help ls` will show you, if it is similar on your system.

Re:Stupid Unix Tricks by imihai1988 on Friday October 18, 2019 @12:19PM (#21292659)
It does't need to be a built-in to have a man page (many first party and third party libraries come with their own man pages).
Re:Stupid Unix Tricks by m463 on Friday October 18, 2019 @03:46PM (#21294509)
"man command" on linux says "no manual entry for command"

"man echo" on linux describes /usr/bin/echo "help echo" describes the builtin.

on the othe hand, "man command" on mac os x gives a huge manpage of builtins (still hard to search for the common word "command")