\curl … | bash … what's the slash for? [duplicate]

Answer 1

This is used to call the "original" command, avoiding it to be called with the possible aliases. That is, disables the possible aliases on the command curl and adjusts to the original one.

If you have

alias grep='grep --color=auto'

and then you do grep, it will have colours. So if you do not want colours, you would just write \grep.

Answer 2

it's a backslash

it is to start the command starting with that name (OR the function) but not the ALIAS.

To make sure to bypass both function AND alias :

command somecommand

To bypass just the alias (and thus launch a function, or if no function, the command):

\somecommand

Let's see which takes precedence over which (I use bash 2.05b ... ymmv)

I'll define a function AND an alias with the same name as a command (ls) :

$ alias ls='echo A'
$ function ls { echo B ; }

Using "type -all ls" shows the order of evaluation :

$ type -all ls
ls is aliased to `echo A'
ls is a function
ls ()
{
    echo B
}
ls is /usr/bin/ls

But we can find out also by trying them out:

$ ls
A
$ \ls
B
$ command ls
file1 file2 file3

So it seems the order of precedence is : alias -before- function -before- command taken in the path.

Of course, if you precise the relative/absolute path, it is then forced to be the command pointed at:

$ /usr/bin/ls
file1 file2 file3

Answer 3

It bypasses a possible alias curl.