How to see the command attached to a bash alias?

Question

Suppose I have an alias in the bash shell. Is there a simple command to print out what command the alias will run?

Answer 1

The type builtin is useful for this. It will not only tell you about aliases, but also functions, builtins, keywords and external commands.

$ type ls
ls is aliased to `ls --color=auto'
$ type rm
rm is /bin/rm
$ type cd
cd is a shell builtin
$ type psgrep
psgrep is a function
psgrep () 
{ 
    ps -ef | { 
        read -r;
        echo "$REPLY";
        grep --color=auto "$@"
    }
}

Answer 2

Just type alias while at the Shell prompt. It should output a list of all currently-active aliases.

Answer 3

I really like Ctrl+Alt+E as I learned from this answer. It "expands" the currently typed command line, meaning it performs alias expansion (amongst other things).

What does that mean? It turns any alias, that might be currently written on the command line, into what the alias stands for.

For example, if I type:

$ ls

and then press Ctrl+Alt+E, it is turned into

$ ls --time-style=locale --color=auto