What command is the alias ll for?

You can use the alias or type commands to check what a specific alias means:

$ alias ll
alias ll='ls -alF'

$ type ll
ll is aliased to `ls -alF'

Note however that aliases might use other aliases, so you might have to check it recursively, e.g. in the case of ll, you should also check the ls command it calls:

$ alias ls
alias ls='ls --color=auto'

$ type ls
ls is aliased to `ls --color=auto'

So ll actually means:

ls --color=auto -alF

ll is an alias defined in your ~/.bashrc, provided you didn't change it it's ls -alF:

$ grep ll= <~/.bashrc
alias ll='ls -alF'

These three options are:

• -a, --all – do not ignore entries starting with .
• -l – use a long listing format
• -F, --classify – append indicator (one of */=>@|) to entries

As

$ grep ls= <~/.bashrc
alias ls='ls --color=auto'

shows, ls itself is again an alias for ls --color=auto:

With --color=auto, ls emits color codes only when standard output is connected to a terminal. The LS_COLORS environment variable can change the settings. Use the dircolors command to set it.

You can look in your ~/.bashrc (or some file where your aliases are) or you can write some of these commands in your shell:

command -v ll # "command" is a shell built-in that display information about       
              # the command. Use the built-in "help command" to see the 
              # options.
type -p ll # "type" is another built-in that display information about how the 
           # command would be interpreted
grep -r "alias ll=" ~ # and don't worry about de .file that contains your 
                      # alias. This command search recursively  under  each  
                      # folder of your home. So it's something rude.
find ~ -maxdepth 1 -type f | xargs grep "alias ll" # Just look in 
                      # the files (not folders) in your home folder

But why use find without the -name ".*" ? Cause you can put this in your .bashrc

source bash_hacks # where the file bash_hacks, in your home directory can 
                  # contain the alias ll='ls -la etc etc'.

Since "ll" it's an alias, it's not necesary that have just one meaning (ll='ls -alF --color'), you can alias your "ll" like another comand like, i don't know, "rm". I think it's more a convention (product of common uses).

But "ll" could be a program stored in any folder of your PATH. For example, if you have a folder named "bin" in your home, make a "ll" script that contains something like

#!/bin/bash
ls -lhar

But, what if your PATH have been altered to add another folder that contains the new "ll" command? For more interesting information, you can consult the following link to a related question.

• https://unix.stackexchange.com/questions/85249/why-not-use-which-what-to-use-then