command (Unix)

command is a shell command for Unix and Unix-like operating systems. It is used to execute a command whilst suppressing normal shell function lookup.

It is specified in the POSIX standard and is often implemented in Unix shells as a shell builtin function. Built-in functions take precedence over programs when resolving the name of a command. A user may suppress the lookup of built-in functions in order to execute a program with the same name as a built-in function.

The arguments passed specify the name of the command to be executed, along with its arguments. If the specified command name is the name of a shell built-in function, the command will be processed as if such function did not exist. In all other circumstances the command will be processed as normal.

In the following, the ls command is run without any shell functions or aliases that may exist with the same name:

$ command ls

• List of Unix commands

• command – Shell and Utilities Reference, The Single UNIX Specification, Version 5 from The Open Group