Whence command behaviour

[ravindra-shinde2]

I’ve noticed that the whence builtin doesn’t seem to behave as expected.

Test case:
$ function func { true; } $ whence -p func | grep -c "func" $ whence -f func | grep -c "func"

My understanding is:

1. whence -f func | grep -c "func" → should print 1 (function definition).
2. whence -p func | grep -c "func" → should print 0 (since -p searches only the path, not functions)

Is my understanding correct? What should the expected outputs be here? Should both cases actually print 0?

[dnewhall]

Both cases should print 0.

Case 1 should print 0 because -f skips the search for functions.
Case 2 should print 0 as you described.

If you want to see if something is specifically defined as a function, try typeset -f <fname>:

$ function func { true; }
$ whence -f func | grep -c func
0
$ whence -p func | grep -c "func"
0
$ typeset -f func | grep -c func
1