What does the "command" command do?

Question

I recently accidentally discovered that command is a command, however typing --help or -h after it only seems to yield results similar to this:

bash: command: --: invalid option
command: usage: command [-pVv] command [arg ...]

It has no manpage, it is not a separate package in itself, and I can't figure out which package it is in nor what it does... I am running Ubuntu GNOME 15.10 with GNOME 3.18. So, what does the command command do? And how does one use it?

It's a shell built-in: try help command or look under man bash — steeldriver, Jan 24 '16 at 23:31
Huh, better yet: http://askubuntu.com/questions/512770/what-is-use-of-command-command?rq=1 — muru, Jan 24 '16 at 23:36

score 2 · Accepted Answer · answered Jan 25 '16 at 04:35

From the 'bash' man page:

  command [-pVv] command [arg ...]
          Run  command  with  args  suppressing  the normal shell function
          lookup. Only builtin commands or commands found in the PATH  are
          executed.   If the -p option is given, the search for command is
          performed using a default value for PATH that is  guaranteed  to
          find  all  of  the  standard  utilities.  If either the -V or -v
          option is supplied, a description of command is printed.  The -v
          option  causes  a single word indicating the command or filename
          used to invoke command to be displayed; the -V option produces a
          more  verbose  description.  If the -V or -v option is supplied,
          the exit status is 0 if command was found, and  1  if  not.   If
          neither option is supplied and an error occurred or command can‐
          not be found, the exit status is 127.  Otherwise, the exit  sta‐
          tus of the command builtin is the exit status of command.

What does the "command" command do?

1 Answers1