How to show what an alias means [duplicate]

Question

I can use compgen -a to list all the aliases:

$ compgen -a
egrep
fgrep
grep
l
la
ll
ls

l, la and ll are defined in my ~/.bashrc:

# some more ls aliases
alias ll='ls -alF'
alias la='ls -A'
alias l='ls -CF'

What command can I run to see what an alias expands to? I have found the whatis, whereis and which, but they don't do what I want.

The command you probably want to use is type which you can use on any command. If your command is an alias or function, type tells you the definition; if it's an executable, you get the path; if it's superseeded by a shell built-in, it will tell you so. Available in bourne shell and successors. — Philippos, Commented Jul 14, 2017 at 14:25
also, if you use alias without arguments, you'll get list of aliases in the reusable form 'alias NAME=VALUE' on standard output — Sundeep, Commented Jul 14, 2017 at 15:19

Mikel · Accepted Answer · 2017-07-14 15:08:37Z

22

You can use alias (without equals) or type

$ alias l
alias l='ls -CF'

$ type l
l is aliased to `ls -CF'

answered Jul 14, 2017 at 13:54

Mikel

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The first option alias l gave me -bash: alias: l: not found. The second type l gave me useful information.
– WolfLink
Commented Sep 29, 2021 at 21:26

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