shtool-path - GNU shtool command dealing with shell path variables
shtool path [-s|--suppress] [-r|--reverse] [-d|--dirname] [-b|--basename] [-m|--magic] [-p|--path path] str [str ...]
This command deals with shell $PATH variables. It can find a program through one or more filenames given by one or more str arguments. It prints the absolute filesystem path to the program displayed on stdout plus an exit code of 0 if it was really found.
The following command line options are available.
Suppress output. Useful to only test whether a program exists with the help of the return code.
Transform a forward path to a subdirectory into a reverse path.
Output the directory name of str.
Output the base name of str.
Enable advanced magic search for "perl and cpp".
Search in path. Default is to search in $PATH.
# shell script awk=`shtool path -p "${PATH}:." gawk nawk awk` perl=`shtool path -m perl` cpp=`shtool path -m cpp` revpath=`shtool path -r path/to/subdir`
The GNU shtool path command was originally written by Ralf S. Engelschall <rse@engelschall.com> in 1998 for Apache. It was later taken over into GNU shtool.