h — Bash Help Tool

h is a full fledged command resolution engine that unifies help into one shortcut - h h is a powerful Bash CLI helper that analyzes commands, functions, aliases, builtins, keywords, and external binaries. It helps you understand what a command does, where it is defined, and shows available documentation.

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Features

• Analyze builtins, aliases, keywords, functions, and external commands.
• Shows where a command is defined (files, line numbers, or shell).
• Displays alias expansions and function contents.
• Provides help output or points to man / info pages.
• Syntax-highlighted preview for functions and scripts (batcat for enhanced highlighting with fallback to perl).
• Integrates with fzf for interactive command search.
• Automatic detection of commonly used admin paths.

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Usage

h [command]       # Analyze the given command
h                 # Analyze your most‑recent command
h -f              # Launch interactive search using fzf
h -h | --help     # Show usage instructions
h -v | --version  # Show version info

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Examples

04:12:55 Tue Dec 02: ~ $ h awk

╔══════════════════════════════════════════════╗
║   h – Bash Help Tool                         ║
╚══════════════════════════════════════════════╝
├─ 'awk' is an external command
    ↳ Path: /usr/bin/awk
    ↳ Symbolic link to: /usr/bin/mawk
    ↳ Showing 'mawk --help':

         Usage: mawk [Options] [Program] [file ...]
         
         Program:
             The -f option value is the name of a file containing program text.
             If no -f option is given, a "--" ends option processing; the following
             parameters are the program text.
         
         Options:
             -f program-file  Program  text is read from file instead of from the
                              command-line.  Multiple -f options are accepted.
             -F value         sets the field separator, FS, to value.
             -v var=value     assigns value to program variable var.
             --               unambiguous end of options.
         
             Implementation-specific options are prefixed with "-W".  They can be
             abbreviated:
         
             -W version       show version information and exit.
             -W dump          show assembler-like listing of program and exit.
             -W help          show this message and exit.
             -W interactive   set unbuffered output, line-buffered input.
             -W exec file     use file as program as well as last option.
             -W posix         stricter POSIX checking.
             -W random=number set initial random seed.
             -W sprintf=number adjust size of sprintf buffer.
             -W traditional   pre-POSIX 2001.
             -W usage         show this message and exit.
         

04:13:01 Tue Dec 02: ~ $ h l

╔══════════════════════════════════════════════╗
║   h – Bash Help Tool                         ║
╚══════════════════════════════════════════════╝
├─ 'l' is an alias → resolves to: alias l='ls -CF'
    ↳ Defined in: /home/jb/.bash_aliases (line 13)

04:22:41 Tue Dec 02: ~ $ h o

╔══════════════════════════════════════════════╗
║   h – Bash Help Tool                         ║
╚══════════════════════════════════════════════╝
├─ 'o' is a shell function
    ↳ Declared in: /home/jb/.bash_functions (line 67)
    ↳ Showing function: o

    o () 
    { 
        for arg in "$@";
        do
            setsid xdg-open "$arg" > /dev/null 2>&1 < /dev/null &
        done
    }

    ─── End of function 'o' ───

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Dependencies

Required:

• grep, basename, file, find, sed, cut, head, readlink, realpath, perl

Optional (enhanced experience):

• tput – colorful output
• fzf – interactive search
• man, info – manual/info pages
• batcat – syntax highlighting

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Installation

Download .bash_h and source it in your .bashrc:

echo 'source ~/.bash_h' >> ~/.bashrc
source ~/.bashrc

h is very BASH specific, and GNU specific.
Compatability table:

System	Works?	Notes
Ubuntu / Debian	✅	Fully supported
Fedora / RHEL / Rocky	✅	Fully supported
Arch / Manjaro	✅	Fully supported
Gentoo	✅	Fully supported
openSUSE	✅	Fully supported
macOS	⚠️	Needs GNU utilities installed
FreeBSD / OpenBSD	⚠️	Needs Bash + GNU utils
Alpine	❌	Unless user installs bash + GNU coreutils
BusyBox environments	❌	Too limited
Dash, ksh, zsh	❌	Script is bash-only

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History:

V1.0.0 was a small alias: alias h='eval "$(history -p !! | awk '''{print $1}''')" --help'

V2.0.0 was a small function using fc similar to this:

  h() {
      last_cmd=$(fc -ln -1 | awk '{print $1}')
      # Run the last command with --help appended
      eval "$last_cmd --help"
  }

V3.0.0 I decided to rewrite h so that i could get help from multiple sources.
Using common flags like ' --help', -help, -h, or -?.
For builtins and some keywords use 'help "command"'
As a fallback, checks for both man pages and info pages then alerts the user if found. For aliases, functions and scripts - handle displaying contents.

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