Anchor(faq86)

How to ignore aliases or functions when running a command?

Sometimes it's useful to ignore aliases (and functions, including shell built-in functions). For example, on your system you might have this set:

alias grep='grep --color=auto'

But sometimes, you need to do a one-liner with pipes where the colors mess things up. You could use any of the following:

unalias grep; grep ...    #1
unalias -a; grep ...      #2
"grep" ...                #3
\grep ...                 #4
command grep              #5

#1 unaliases grep before using it, doing nothing if grep wasn't aliased. However, the alias is then gone for the rest of that shell session.

#2 is similar, but removing all aliases.

#3 and #4 are the same, allowing you to run grep once while ignoring the grep alias.

#5 is different from the others in that ignores aliases and functions. It has a few options which you might want to use, see help command.