Table B-4 shows a summary of all built-in commands and reserved words. The letters in the Type column of the table have the following meanings: R = reserved word, blank = Builtin.
Table B-4. Commands and reserved words
| Command | Chapter | Type | Summary |
|---|
| ! | 5 | R | Logical NOT of a command exit status. |
| : | 7 | | Do nothing (just do expansions of any arguments). |
| . | 4 | | Read file and execute its contents in current shell. |
| alias | 3 | | Set up shorthand for command or command line. |
| bg | 8 | | Put job in background. |
| bind | 2 | | Bind a key sequence to a readline function or macro. |
| break | 5 | | Exit from surrounding for, select, while, or until loop. |
| builtin | 5 | | Execute the specified shell built-in. |
| case | 5 | R | Reserved word. Multi-way conditional construct. |
| cd | 1 | | Change working directory. |
| command | 7 | | Run a command bypassing shell function lookup. |
| compgen | D | | Generate possible completion matches. |
| complete | D | | Specify how completion should be performed. |
| continue | | | Skip to next iteration of for, select, while, or until loop. |
| declare | 6 | | Declare variables and give them attributes. |
| dirs | 6 | | Display the list of currently remembered directories. |
| disown | 8 | | Remove a job from the job table. |
| do | 5 | R | Part of a for, select, while, or until looping construct. |
| done | 5 | R | Part of a for, select, while, or until looping construct. |
| echo | 4 | | Expand and print any arguments. |
| elif | 5 | R | Part of an if construct. |
| else | 5 | R | Part of an if construct. |
| enable | 7 | | Enable and disable built-in shell commands. |
| esac | 5 | R | Part of a case construct. |
| eval | 7 | | Run the given arguments through command-line processing. |
| exec | 9 | | Replace the shell with the given program. |
| exit | 5 | | Exit from the shell. |
| export | 3 | | Create environment variables. |
| fc | 2 | | Fix command (edit history file). |
| fg | 8 | | Put background job in foreground. |
| fi | 5 | R | Part of an if construct. |
| for | 5 | R | Looping construct. |
| function | 4 | R | Define a function. |
| getopts | 6 | | Process command-line options. |
| hash | 3 | | Full pathnames are determined and remembered. |
| help | 1 | | Display helpful information on built-in commands. |
| history | 1 | | Display command history. |
| if | 5 | R | Conditional construct. |
| in | 5 | R | Part of a case construct. |
| jobs | 1 | | List any background jobs. |
| kill | 8 | | Send a signal to a process. |
| let | 6 | | Arithmetic variable assignment. |
| local | 4 | | Create a local variable. |
| logout | 1 | | Exits a login shell. |
| popd | 4 | | Removes a directory from the directory stack. |
| pushd | 4 | | Adds a directory to the directory stack. |
| pwd | 1 | | Print the working directory. |
| read | 7 | | Read a line from standard input. |
| readonly | 6 | | Make variables read-only (unassignable). |
| return | 5 | | Return from the surrounding function or script. |
| select | 5 | R | Menu-generation construct. |
| set | 3 | | Set options. |
| shift | 6 | | Shift command-line arguments. |
| suspend | | | Suspend execution of a shell. |
| test | 5 | | Evaluates a conditional expression. |
| then | 5 | R | Part of an if construct. |
| time | | R | Run command pipeline and print execution times. The format of the output can be controlled with TIMEFORMAT. |
| times | | | Print the accumulated user and system times for processes run from the shell. |
| trap | 8 | | Set up a signal-catching routine. |
| type | 3 | | Identify the source of a command. |
| typeset | 6 | | Declare variables and give them attributes. Same as declare. |
| ulimit | 10 | | Set/show process resource limits. |
| umask | 10 | | Set/show file permission mask. |
| unalias | 3 | | Remove alias definitions. |
| unset | 3 | | Remove definitions of variables or functions. |
| until | 5 | R | Looping construct. |
| wait | 8 | | Wait for background job(s) to finish. |
| while | 5 | R | Looping construct. |
