[shell] How can I check if a command exists in a shell script?

A function which works in both bash and zsh:

# Return the first pathname in $PATH for name in $1
function cmd_path () {
  if [[ $ZSH_VERSION ]]; then
    whence -cp "$1" 2> /dev/null
  else  # bash
     type -P "$1"  # No output if not in $PATH
  fi
}

Non-zero is returned if the command is not found in $PATH.