Bizarre bash problem

[Michael O'Donnell]

I pretty much never use the 'which' command
any more (5 or 6 yrs now) since I started
using bash.  In most cases, the whole point of
using something like 'which' is to learn which
of possibly several files will be invoked when
you type a particular token as the verb in a
shell command.  Most of the 'which' commands I
know of are separate programs rather than being
shell builtins.  Since a separate program can
only make guesses about the matter in question,
why not ask the shell directly instead.

With bash you simply say:

   type fubar

...to learn what bash would use as the fubar
command.  If you insist, you can always do
something like:

   alias which=type
   which fubar

...and you can always ask bash for its
online help by saying:

   help type