UNIX's 'look' command

March 9, 2002

I was embarassed yesterday when I found out about the 'look' command. If you don't know about it, feel free to join the crowd.

At work yesterday, I asked Johnie how to spell "cognizant". Everything I tried was coming out incorrect according to the spell-checker, and it wasn't offering me the correct spelling.

Five seconds later... "c-o-g-n-i-z-a-n-t", said Johnie. Then he showed me how he did it. At a UNIX prompt, type:

look cogni

Welcome to Darwin!
[localhost:~] jim% look cogni
cognisable
cognisance
cognition
cognitional
cognitive
cognitively
cognitum
cognizability
cognizable
cognizableness
cognizably
cognizance
cognizant
cognize
cognizee
cognizer
cognizor
[localhost:~] jim%

D'OH! Apparently this has been a part of UNIX environments for about 20 years. How could I have missed this? Oh well... the good news is Johnie's a UNIX shell maniac, and I'll surely learn lots more from him. :-)