Hi, this is Sandra Henry-Stocker, author of the “Unix as a Second Language” blog on NetworkWorld.
In this Linux tip, we’re going to look at the help command. It’s a command that provides useful information on bash “builtins”. Those are commands that are built into, in other words “part of” the bash shell, not executables on their own. So, Linux won’t have man pages for them.
To get a listing of all of the bash built-ins, just type “help” on the command line.
To get help for a particular built-in, type “help” followed by the name of the built-in that you want help with.
Since the help command is itself a bash built-in, it’s only going to work with bash and related shells like rbash. But, if you’re looking for help with a command like suspend or umask and can’t find a man page (because there isn’t one), check help. It just might have something to offer.
That’s your Linux tip for the help command.
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