Do you know when you run the Linux / Unix command it could be Internal or External ? For identifying and understand on command type, here we have article for you.

Linux/Unix has so many commands. If you know these commands, your Linux work will be much more easier and faster.

Table of Contents

• Difference Between Linux Internal And External Command
• How To Identify Internal Or External Command
• Conclusion

In this post we have tried to provide the difference between Internal and External command in a simple manner.

Difference Between Linux Internal And External Command

In Linux, generally commands are categorised into two types – Internal Command and External Command.

We have simplify the difference between the two types of command in given below table.

Internal Command	External Command
Internal commands are shell built-in commands.	External commands are other than shell built-in command.
It doesn’t need to be set in PATH variable.	We have to set the PATH variable for External commands.
Do not require any process to spawn on execution.	It require process to be spawned when it get executed.
Example: cd, source, fg, echo 	Example: ls,cat.

How To Identify Internal Or External Command

In above section, we read about the difference between Internal and External Command. But as a user, how can we identify the command type.

For identifying the Internal and External command, we will use the command called type .

We have already written about type command in detail, you must be interested to read this post – “type command : display information about command type on Linux“

For a quick check, use this Syntax

type [argument] [command name]

For example, let’s check if cd command is Internal or External

user1@server01:~$ type cd
cd is a shell builtin
user1@server01:~$

The above output shows that cd command is Internal Command means Shell Built-in . Try the same type command to identify other commands.

Conclusion

In this article, we have described the difference between Linux/Unix Internal and External command. This article will help to enhance the knowledge on Linux Command Line system.