Name of default “sffamily” font

Question

I'm using LaTeX (texlive) in Debian Wheezy. How can I determine which font is specified by \sffamily?

Answer 1

You could issue \meaning\sfdefault in the document body -- without any font packages loaded, this will yield cmss, i.e., Computer Modern Sans Serif.

\documentclass{article}

\usepackage[T1]{fontenc}

\begin{document}

\meaning\sfdefault

\end{document}