![]() Example usage of which command to show various commands' executable paths | |
Developer(s) | Carlo Wood, Daniel Papasian, Trane Francks |
---|---|
Stable release | 2.21
[1]
![]() |
Operating system | Unix, Unix-like, Microsoft Windows, FreeBSD, FreeDOS, AROS Research Operating System [2] |
Type | Command |
License | coreutils: GNU GPL v3, BusyBox: BSD, FreeDOS: GNU GPLv2, AROS: AROS Public License (APL) Version 1.1 (based on the MPL) [3] |
Website | GNU:
gnu |
In
computing, which
is a
command for various
operating systems used to identify the location of
executables. The command is available in
Unix and
Unix-like systems, the
AROS shell,
[4] for
FreeDOS
[5] and for
Microsoft Windows.
[2] The functionality of the which command is similar to some implementations of the
type command.
POSIX specifies a command named
command that also covers this functionality.
[6]
The command takes one or more arguments; for each of these arguments, it prints the full path of the executable to stdout that would have been executed if this argument had been entered into the shell. It does this by searching for an executable or script in the directories listed in the environment variable PATH. [7] The which command is part of most Unix-like computers. It is also part of the C Shell. [6]
A which command first appeared in 3BSD. [8]
Carlo Wood developed the GNU implementation used in most Linux-based operating systems. [9]
On FreeBSD, the which utility was originally written in Perl by Wolfram Schneider. The current version of which was rewritten by Daniel Papasian using the C programming language. [10]
Multics uses the command where
abbreviated as wh
.
The command is available as a separate package for
Microsoft Windows as part of the
GnuWin32 project
[2] and the
UnxUtils collection of
native
Win32
ports of common
GNU
Unix-like
utilities.
[11] Windows also includes the similar where.exe
command.
The same functionality is available in MS-DOS, but not Windows, as the built-in TRUENAME command.
In PowerShell, the functionality is provided by the Get-Command Cmdlet. [12]
The FreeDOS version was developed by Trane Francks. [13]
The command is used to find and print the location of a specific program. [14]
Inputs:
which
for Windows from the
GnuWin32 project
which
man page
![]() Example usage of which command to show various commands' executable paths | |
Developer(s) | Carlo Wood, Daniel Papasian, Trane Francks |
---|---|
Stable release | 2.21
[1]
![]() |
Operating system | Unix, Unix-like, Microsoft Windows, FreeBSD, FreeDOS, AROS Research Operating System [2] |
Type | Command |
License | coreutils: GNU GPL v3, BusyBox: BSD, FreeDOS: GNU GPLv2, AROS: AROS Public License (APL) Version 1.1 (based on the MPL) [3] |
Website | GNU:
gnu |
In
computing, which
is a
command for various
operating systems used to identify the location of
executables. The command is available in
Unix and
Unix-like systems, the
AROS shell,
[4] for
FreeDOS
[5] and for
Microsoft Windows.
[2] The functionality of the which command is similar to some implementations of the
type command.
POSIX specifies a command named
command that also covers this functionality.
[6]
The command takes one or more arguments; for each of these arguments, it prints the full path of the executable to stdout that would have been executed if this argument had been entered into the shell. It does this by searching for an executable or script in the directories listed in the environment variable PATH. [7] The which command is part of most Unix-like computers. It is also part of the C Shell. [6]
A which command first appeared in 3BSD. [8]
Carlo Wood developed the GNU implementation used in most Linux-based operating systems. [9]
On FreeBSD, the which utility was originally written in Perl by Wolfram Schneider. The current version of which was rewritten by Daniel Papasian using the C programming language. [10]
Multics uses the command where
abbreviated as wh
.
The command is available as a separate package for
Microsoft Windows as part of the
GnuWin32 project
[2] and the
UnxUtils collection of
native
Win32
ports of common
GNU
Unix-like
utilities.
[11] Windows also includes the similar where.exe
command.
The same functionality is available in MS-DOS, but not Windows, as the built-in TRUENAME command.
In PowerShell, the functionality is provided by the Get-Command Cmdlet. [12]
The FreeDOS version was developed by Trane Francks. [13]
The command is used to find and print the location of a specific program. [14]
Inputs:
which
for Windows from the
GnuWin32 project
which
man page