Is `which` lying to me?

Question

I installed git via apt-get, but found that the version was hopelessly outdated, so I then installed git from source. The end result is rather puzzling:

$ git --version
git version 1.7.0.4
$ which git
/usr/local/bin/git
$ /usr/local/bin/git --version
git version 1.7.6

It appears that which is lying to me...which seems unlikely. What is actually going on here, and how can I get a bare call to git to run the correct version?

what shows `whereis git`? and less probable, what shows `type git`? — hmontoliu, Aug 05 '11 at 18:24
Why not simply uninstall the version you got from apt-get if you don't want it? — Zoredache, Aug 05 '11 at 18:24
@hmontoliu useful commands! I didn't know about either of those. `whereis git`: `git: /usr/bin/git /usr/local/bin/git /usr/share/man/man1/git.1.gz`. `type git`: `git is hashed (/usr/bin/git)`. What does "git is hashed" mean? — Josh Bleecher Snyder, Aug 05 '11 at 18:30
@ Zoredache, quanta: Yep, that seems like a sensible thing to do. I just like to understand what's going on, in addition to fixing the problem. — Josh Bleecher Snyder, Aug 05 '11 at 18:32

score 14 · Accepted Answer · answered Aug 05 '11 at 18:42

14

which is telling the truth. Your shell is lying to you.

git is hashed (/usr/bin/git)

means that your shell has cached this location of "git" and is using the cached path rather than searching $PATH again. Use hash -r to clear the cache and make the shell search $PATH for the new git at /usr/local/bin/git

answered Aug 05 '11 at 18:42

DerfK

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That was it! Thanks, for both the solution and the clear explanation. – Josh Bleecher Snyder Aug 05 '11 at 19:07

score 0 · Answer 2 · answered Aug 05 '11 at 18:40

Did you set up an alias for git in your shell?

$ alias git="/bin/echo This is not the git you are looking for"
$ which git
/usr/bin/git
$ git --version
This is not the git you are looking for --version
$ /usr/bin/git --version
git version 1.7.4.1
$ type git
git is aliased to `/bin/echo This is not the git you are looking for'
$ unalias git
$ type git
git is /usr/bin/git
$ git --version
git version 1.7.4.1

Is `which` lying to me?

2 Answers2