>I know I don't need to do a rehash for bash, if new comands appear, it >get picked up automatically. > >But strange thing is that if I launch an application then create an >instance in my local bin, which comes first in my $PATH, and issue the >command again, bash still pick the application from the old place, not >the new place:
You don't need to rehash to find new commands, but if the location of a command that has already been hashed has changed you need to tell the shell so that it will update its hash. You can use "hash <command>" to update the hash for that command, or "hash -r" to forget all hashed commands and start fresh.
The whole point of the hash is to avoid checking all the directories in your PATH every time you type a command
Barry Margolin,
documented on: 1999.10.05 Tue 10:46:12