paths displays the directory where the file is located

It uses the PATH environment variable which holds directory names, separated by a colon (:).

paths [-l] [-s] file [file ...]

ARG contains each command-line argument DIR element with a directory name in the PATH FILE contains the name of each file on the command line FORMAT Type the desired output format IFS shell variable, the field separator PATH shell variable, the path to the executable directory modules.

#!/bin/bash
#
# @(#) paths v1.0 Path locator with special options.
#
FORMAT="path"
 
for ARG in $@
do
  if [ '`echo $ARG | cut -c1`" = "-" ]
  then case $ARG in
    -l)  FORMAT="ls"
         shift;;
    -s)  FORMAT="set"
         set "1";;
     *)  echo $0: arg error"                        >&2
         echo "usage: $0 [-l] [-s] file [file ...]" >&2
         exit 1;;
    esac
  fi
done
 
IFS="${IFS}:"
 
for FILE in $@
do
  for DIR in $PATH
  do
    case $FORMAT in
      path)  if [ -f $DIR/$FILE ]
             then echo $DIR/$FILE
             fi;;
      ls)    if [ -f $DIR/$FILE ]
             then ls -l $DIR/$FILE
             fi;;
      set)   echo "\n:::::::::::::::::::"
             echo "$DIR"
             echo "::::::::::::::::::::"
             ls -al $DIR | grep "^[^ ]*s[^ ]*";;
    esac
  done
done

paths -l ed ex vi