Bash build-in commands

The following commands, typed directly at the prompt without slashes (no directory) will be run inside bash.

If you think for a moment, you will see that this is a very handy feature. Imagine that for any reason, the system is in trashing or with CPU at 100%, you can not open terminal and you only have the console with a bash prompt. You try to run “top” but the system tells you that it cannot launch the command. What can you do to kill the hung program that is eting the 100% of the CPU?

If you have bash running in the console, what about using the build-in commands to kill the offending program?

Click for a solution after thinking about it..

Find in the GNU Bash documentation the official built-in command list.

Built-in command First in
: (a colon) sh
. (a period) sh
[ sh
alias bash
bg bash
bind bash
break sh
builtin bash
caller bash
cd sh
command bash
compgen bash
complete bash
compopt bash
continue sh
declare bash
dirs bash
disown bash
echo bash
enable bash
eval sh
exec sh
exit sh
export sh
fc bash
fg bash
getopts sh
hash sh
help bash
history bash
jobs bash
kill bash
let bash
local bash
logout bash
mapfile bash
popd bash
printf bash
pushd bash
pwd sh
read bash
readarray bash
readonly sh
return sh
set sh
shift sh
shopt bash
source bash
test sh
times sh
trap sh
type bash
typeset bash
ulimit bash
umask sh
unalias bash
unset sh
wait sh