The
utility is the standard command interpreter for the system.
The current version of
is in the process of being changed to
conform with the
St -p1003.2
specification for the shell.
This version has many features which make
it appear
similar in some respects to the Korn shell, but it is not a Korn
shell clone like
pdksh
Only features
designated by
POSIX
plus a few Berkeley extensions, are being
incorporated into this shell.
This man page is not intended to be a tutorial nor a complete
specification of the shell.
Overview
The shell is a command that reads lines from
either a file or the terminal, interprets them, and
generally executes other commands.
It is the program that is started when a user logs into the system,
although a user can select a different shell with the
chsh(1)
command.
The shell
implements a language that has flow control constructs,
a macro facility that provides a variety of features in
addition to data storage, along with built-in history and line
editing capabilities.
It incorporates many features to
aid interactive use and has the advantage that the interpretative
language is common to both interactive and non-interactive
use (shell scripts).
That is, commands can be typed directly
to the running shell or can be put into a file,
which can be executed directly by the shell.
Invocation
If no arguments are present and if the standard input of the shell
is connected to a terminal
(or if the
-i
option is set),
the shell is considered an interactive shell.
An interactive shell
generally prompts before each command and handles programming
and command errors differently (as described below).
When first starting, the shell inspects argument 0, and
if it begins with a dash
(`-'
)
the shell is also considered a login shell.
This is normally done automatically by the system
when the user first logs in.
A login shell first reads commands
from the files
/etc/profile
and then
.profile
in a user's home directory,
if they exist.
If the environment variable
ENV
is set on entry to a shell, or is set in the
.profile
of a login shell, the shell then reads commands from the file named in
ENV
Therefore, a user should place commands that are to be executed only
at login time in the
.profile
file, and commands that are executed for every shell inside the
ENV
file.
The user can set the
ENV
variable to some file by placing the following line in the file
.profile
in the home directory,
substituting for
.shinit
the filename desired:
"ENV=$HOME/.shinit; export ENV"
The first non-option argument specified on the command line
will be treated as the
name of a file from which to read commands (a shell script), and
the remaining arguments are set as the positional parameters
of the shell
( $1 , $2
etc.).
Otherwise, the shell reads commands
from its standard input.
Unlike older versions of
the
ENV
script is only sourced on invocation of interactive shells.
This
closes a well-known, and sometimes easily exploitable security
hole related to poorly thought out
ENV
scripts.
Argument List Processing
All of the single letter options to
have a corresponding long name,
with the exception of
-c
and
-/+o
These long names are provided next to the single letter options
in the descriptions below.
The long name for an option may be specified as an argument to the
-/+o
option of
.
Once the shell is running,
the long name for an option may be specified as an argument to the
-/+o
option of the
set
built-in command
(described later in the section called
Sx Built-in Commands ) .
Introducing an option with a dash
(`-'
)
enables the option,
while using a plus
(`+'
)
disables the option.
A
``--
''
or plain
`-'
will stop option processing and will force the remaining
words on the command line to be treated as arguments.
The
-/+o
and
-c
options do not have long names.
They take arguments and are described after the single letter options.
-a allexport
Flag variables for export when assignments are made to them.
-b notify
Enable asynchronous notification of background job
completion.
(UNIMPLEMENTED)
-C noclobber
Do not overwrite existing files with
`>'
-E emacs
Enable the built-in
emacs(1)
command line editor (disables the
-V
option if it has been set).
-e errexit
Exit immediately if any untested command fails in non-interactive mode.
The exit status of a command is considered to be
explicitly tested if the command is part of the list used to control
an
if , elif , while
or
until
if the command is the left
hand operand of an
``&&
''
or
``||
''
operator; or if the command is a pipeline preceded by the
!
operator.
If a shell function is executed and its exit status is explicitly
tested, all commands of the function are considered to be tested as
well.
-f noglob
Disable pathname expansion.
-I ignoreeof
Ignore
EOF Ap s
from input when in interactive mode.
-i interactive
Force the shell to behave interactively.
-m monitor
Turn on job control (set automatically when interactive).
-n noexec
If not interactive, read commands but do not
execute them.
This is useful for checking the
syntax of shell scripts.
-P physical
Change the default for the
cd
and
pwd
commands from
-L
(logical directory layout)
to
-P
(physical directory layout).
-p privileged
Turn on privileged mode.
This mode is enabled on startup
if either the effective user or group ID is not equal to the
real user or group ID.
Turning this mode off sets the
effective user and group IDs to the real user and group IDs.
When this mode is enabled for interactive shells, the file
/etc/suid_profile
is sourced instead of
~/.profile
after
/etc/profile
is sourced, and the contents of the
ENV
variable are ignored.
-s stdin
Read commands from standard input (set automatically
if no file arguments are present).
This option has
no effect when set after the shell has already started
running (i.e., when set with the
set
command).
-T trapsasync
When waiting for a child, execute traps immediately.
If this option is not set,
traps are executed after the child exits,
as specified in
St -p1003.2 .
This nonstandard option is useful for putting guarding shells around
children that block signals.
The surrounding shell may kill the child
or it may just return control to the tty and leave the child alone,
like this:
sh -T -c "trap 'exit 1' 2 ; some-blocking-program"
-u nounset
Write a message to standard error when attempting
to expand a variable that is not set, and if the
shell is not interactive, exit immediately.
-V vi
Enable the built-in
vi(1)
command line editor (disables
-E
if it has been set).
-v verbose
The shell writes its input to standard error
as it is read.
Useful for debugging.
-x xtrace
Write each command
(preceded by the value of the
PS4
variable)
to standard error before it is executed.
Useful for debugging.
The
-c
option causes the commands to be read from the
string
operand instead of from the standard input.
Keep in mind that this option only accepts a single string as its
argument, hence multi-word strings must be quoted.
The
-/+o
option takes as its only argument the long name of an option
to be enabled or disabled.
For example, the following two invocations of
both enable the built-in
emacs(1)
command line editor:
set -E
set -o emacs
If used without an argument, the
-o
option displays the current option settings in a human-readable format.
If
+o
is used without an argument, the current option settings are output
in a format suitable for re-input into the shell.
Lexical Structure
The shell reads input in terms of lines from a file and breaks
it up into words at whitespace (blanks and tabs), and at
certain sequences of
characters called
``operators''
which are special to the shell.
There are two types of operators: control operators and
redirection operators (their meaning is discussed later).
The following is a list of valid operators:
Control operators:
& Ta && Ta ( Ta ) Ta \n
;; Ta ; Ta | Ta ||
Redirection operators:
< Ta > Ta << Ta >> Ta <>
<& Ta >& Ta <<- Ta >|
The character
`#'
introduces a comment if used at the beginning of a word.
The word starting with
`#'
and the rest of the line are ignored.
Quoting
Quoting is used to remove the special meaning of certain characters
or words to the shell, such as operators, whitespace, keywords,
or alias names.
There are three types of quoting: matched single quotes,
matched double quotes, and backslash.
Single Quotes
Enclosing characters in single quotes preserves the literal
meaning of all the characters (except single quotes, making
it impossible to put single-quotes in a single-quoted string).
Double Quotes
Enclosing characters within double quotes preserves the literal
meaning of all characters except dollar sign
(`$'
)
backquote
(``'
)
and backslash
(`\'
)
The backslash inside double quotes is historically weird.
It remains literal unless it precedes the following characters,
which it serves to quote:
$ Ta ` Ta Ta \ Ta \n
Backslash
A backslash preserves the literal meaning of the following
character, with the exception of the newline character
(`\n'
)
A backslash preceding a newline is treated as a line continuation.
Reserved Words
Reserved words are words that have special meaning to the
shell and are recognized at the beginning of a line and
after a control operator.
The following are reserved words:
! Ta { Ta } Ta case Ta do
done Ta elif Ta else Ta esac Ta fi
for Ta if Ta then Ta until Ta while
Aliases
An alias is a name and corresponding value set using the
alias
built-in command.
Whenever a reserved word may occur (see above),
and after checking for reserved words, the shell
checks the word to see if it matches an alias.
If it does, it replaces it in the input stream with its value.
For example, if there is an alias called
``lf
''
with the value
``ls -F
''
then the input
"lf foobar"
would become
"ls -F foobar"
Aliases provide a convenient way for naive users to
create shorthands for commands without having to learn how
to create functions with arguments.
They can also be
used to create lexically obscure code.
This use is discouraged.
An alias name may be escaped in a command line, so that it is not
replaced by its alias value, by using quoting characters within or
adjacent to the alias name.
This is most often done by prefixing
an alias name with a backslash to execute a function, built-in, or
normal program with the same name.
See the
Sx Quoting
subsection.
Commands
The shell interprets the words it reads according to a
language, the specification of which is outside the scope
of this man page (refer to the BNF in the
St -p1003.2
document).
Essentially though, a line is read and if
the first word of the line (or after a control operator)
is not a reserved word, then the shell has recognized a
simple command.
Otherwise, a complex command or some
other special construct may have been recognized.
Simple Commands
If a simple command has been recognized, the shell performs
the following actions:
Leading words of the form
``name=value
''
are stripped off and assigned to the environment of
the simple command.
Redirection operators and
their arguments (as described below) are stripped
off and saved for processing.
The remaining words are expanded as described in
the section called
Sx Word Expansions ,
and the first remaining word is considered the command
name and the command is located.
The remaining
words are considered the arguments of the command.
If no command name resulted, then the
``name=value
''
variable assignments recognized in 1) affect the
current shell.
Redirections are performed as described in
the next section.
Redirections
Redirections are used to change where a command reads its input
or sends its output.
In general, redirections open, close, or
duplicate an existing reference to a file.
The overall format
used for redirection is:
The
redir-op
is one of the redirection operators mentioned
previously.
The following gives some examples of how these
operators can be used.
Note that stdin and stdout are commonly used abbreviations
for standard input and standard output respectively.
[n > file
]
redirect stdout (or file descriptor
n
to
file
[n >| file
]
same as above, but override the
-C
option
[n >> file
]
append stdout (or file descriptor
n
to
file
[n < file
]
redirect stdin (or file descriptor
n
from
file
[n <> file
]
redirect stdin (or file descriptor
n
to and from
file
[n1 <& n2
]
duplicate stdin (or file descriptor
n1
from file descriptor
n2
[n <&-
]
close stdin (or file descriptor
n
[n1 >& n2
]
duplicate stdout (or file descriptor
n1
to file descriptor
n2
[n >&-
]
close stdout (or file descriptor
n
The following redirection is often called a
``here-document''
[n << delimiter
]
delimiter
All the text on successive lines up to the delimiter is
saved away and made available to the command on standard
input, or file descriptor
n
if it is specified.
If the
delimiter
as specified on the initial line is quoted, then the
here-doc-text
is treated literally, otherwise the text is subjected to
parameter expansion, command substitution, and arithmetic
expansion (as described in the section on
Sx Word Expansions ) .
If the operator is
``<<-
''
instead of
``<<
''
then leading tabs
in the
here-doc-text
are stripped.
Search and Execution
There are three types of commands: shell functions,
built-in commands, and normal programs.
The command is searched for (by name) in that order.
The three types of commands are all executed in a different way.
When a shell function is executed, all of the shell positional
parameters (except
$0
which remains unchanged) are
set to the arguments of the shell function.
The variables which are explicitly placed in the environment of
the command (by placing assignments to them before the
function name) are made local to the function and are set
to the values given.
Then the command given in the function definition is executed.
The positional parameters are restored to their original values
when the command completes.
This all occurs within the current shell.
Shell built-in commands are executed internally to the shell, without
spawning a new process.
Otherwise, if the command name does not match a function
or built-in command, the command is searched for as a normal
program in the file system (as described in the next section).
When a normal program is executed, the shell runs the program,
passing the arguments and the environment to the program.
If the program is not a normal executable file
(i.e., if it does not begin with the
``magic number''
whose
ASCII
representation is
``#!
''
resulting in an
Er ENOEXEC
return value from
execve(2))
the shell will interpret the program in a subshell.
The child shell will reinitialize itself in this case,
so that the effect will be
as if a new shell had been invoked to handle the ad-hoc shell script,
except that the location of hashed commands located in
the parent shell will be remembered by the child
(see the description of the
hash
built-in command below).
Note that previous versions of this document
and the source code itself misleadingly and sporadically
refer to a shell script without a magic number
as a
``shell procedure''
Path Search
When locating a command, the shell first looks to see if
it has a shell function by that name.
Then it looks for a
built-in command by that name.
If a built-in command is not found,
one of two things happen:
Command names containing a slash are simply executed without
performing any searches.
The shell searches each entry in the
PATH
environment variable
in turn for the command.
The value of the
PATH
variable should be a series of
entries separated by colons.
Each entry consists of a
directory name.
The current directory
may be indicated implicitly by an empty directory name,
or explicitly by a single period.
Command Exit Status
Each command has an exit status that can influence the behavior
of other shell commands.
The paradigm is that a command exits
with zero for normal or success, and non-zero for failure,
error, or a false indication.
The man page for each command
should indicate the various exit codes and what they mean.
Additionally, the built-in commands return exit codes, as does
an executed shell function.
If a command is terminated by a signal, its exit status is 128 plus
the signal number.
Signal numbers are defined in the header file
In sys/signal.h .
Complex Commands
Complex commands are combinations of simple commands
with control operators or reserved words, together creating a larger complex
command.
More generally, a command is one of the following:
simple command
pipeline
list or compound-list
compound command
function definition
Unless otherwise stated, the exit status of a command is
that of the last simple command executed by the command.
Pipelines
A pipeline is a sequence of one or more commands separated
by the control operator
`|'
The standard output of all but
the last command is connected to the standard input
of the next command.
The standard output of the last
command is inherited from the shell, as usual.
The format for a pipeline is:
The standard output of
command1
is connected to the standard input of
command2
The standard input, standard output, or
both of a command is considered to be assigned by the
pipeline before any redirection specified by redirection
operators that are part of the command.
If the pipeline is not in the background (discussed later),
the shell waits for all commands to complete.
If the reserved word
!
does not precede the pipeline, the
exit status is the exit status of the last command specified
in the pipeline.
Otherwise, the exit status is the logical
NOT of the exit status of the last command.
That is, if
the last command returns zero, the exit status is 1; if
the last command returns greater than zero, the exit status
is zero.
Because pipeline assignment of standard input or standard
output or both takes place before redirection, it can be
modified by redirection.
For example:
"command1 2>&1 | command2"
sends both the standard output and standard error of
command1
to the standard input of
command2
A
`;'
or newline terminator causes the preceding
AND-OR-list
(described below in the section called
Sx Short-Circuit List Operators )
to be executed sequentially;
an
`&'
causes asynchronous execution of the preceding AND-OR-list.
Note that unlike some other shells,
executes each process in the pipeline as a child of the
process.
Shell built-in commands are the exception to this rule.
They are executed in the current shell, although they do not affect its
environment when used in pipelines.
Background Commands (&)
If a command is terminated by the control operator ampersand
(`&'
)
the shell executes the command asynchronously;
the shell does not wait for the command to finish
before executing the next command.
The format for running a command in background is:
If the shell is not interactive, the standard input of an
asynchronous command is set to
/dev/null
Lists (Generally Speaking)
A list is a sequence of zero or more commands separated by
newlines, semicolons, or ampersands,
and optionally terminated by one of these three characters.
The commands in a
list are executed in the order they are written.
If command is followed by an ampersand, the shell starts the
command and immediately proceeds onto the next command;
otherwise it waits for the command to terminate before
proceeding to the next one.
Short-Circuit List Operators
``&&
''
and
``||
''
are AND-OR list operators.
``&&
''
executes the first command, and then executes the second command
if the exit status of the first command is zero.
``||
''
is similar, but executes the second command if the exit
status of the first command is nonzero.
``&&
''
and
``||
''
both have the same priority.
Flow-Control Constructs (if, while, for, case)
The syntax of the
if
command is:
if listthen list
[elif listthen list ...
]
[else list
]
fi
The syntax of the
while
command is:
while listdo listdone
The two lists are executed repeatedly while the exit status of the
first list is zero.
The
until
command is similar, but has the word
until
in place of
while
which causes it to
repeat until the exit status of the first list is zero.
The syntax of the
for
command is:
for variable [in word ...
]
do listdone
If
in
and the following words are omitted,
in $@
is used instead.
The words are expanded, and then the list is executed
repeatedly with the variable set to each word in turn.
The
do
and
done
commands may be replaced with
`{'
and
`}'
The syntax of the
break
and
continue
commands is:
The
break
command terminates the
num
innermost
for
or
while
loops.
The
continue
command continues with the next iteration of the innermost loop.
These are implemented as built-in commands.
The syntax of the
case
command is:
case word inpattern ) list ;;...esac
The pattern can actually be one or more patterns
(see
Sx Shell Patterns
described later),
separated by
`|'
characters.
The exit code of the
case
command is the exit code of the last command executed in the list or
zero if no patterns were matched.
Grouping Commands Together
Commands may be grouped by writing either
or
The first form executes the commands in a subshell.
Note that built-in commands thus executed do not affect the current shell.
The second form does not fork another shell,
so it is slightly more efficient.
Grouping commands together this way allows the user to
redirect their output as though they were one program:
{ echo -n "hello"; echo " world"; } > greeting
Functions
The syntax of a function definition is
A function definition is an executable statement; when
executed it installs a function named
name
and returns an
exit status of zero.
The
command
is normally a list
enclosed between
`{'
and
`}'
Variables may be declared to be local to a function by
using the
local
command.
This should appear as the first statement of a function,
and the syntax is:
The
local
command is implemented as a built-in command.
When a variable is made local, it inherits the initial
value and exported and readonly flags from the variable
with the same name in the surrounding scope, if there is
one.
Otherwise, the variable is initially unset.
The shell
uses dynamic scoping, so that if the variable
x
is made local to function
f
which then calls function
g
references to the variable
x
made inside
g
will refer to the variable
x
declared inside
f
not to the global variable named
x
The only special parameter that can be made local is
`-'
Making
`-'
local causes any shell options that are
changed via the
set
command inside the function to be
restored to their original values when the function
returns.
The syntax of the
return
command is
It terminates the current executional scope, returning from the previous
nested function, sourced script, or shell instance, in that order.
The
return
command is implemented as a built-in command.
Variables and Parameters
The shell maintains a set of parameters.
A parameter
denoted by a name is called a variable.
When starting up,
the shell turns all the environment variables into shell
variables.
New variables can be set using the form
Variables set by the user must have a name consisting solely
of alphabetics, numerics, and underscores.
The first letter of a variable name must not be numeric.
A parameter can also be denoted by a number
or a special character as explained below.
Positional Parameters
A positional parameter is a parameter denoted by a number greater than zero.
The shell sets these initially to the values of its command line
arguments that follow the name of the shell script.
The
set
built-in command can also be used to set or reset them.
Special Parameters
A special parameter is a parameter denoted by a special one-character
name.
The special parameters recognized by the
shell of
Fx are shown in the following list, exactly as they would appear in input
typed by the user or in the source of a shell script.
$*
Expands to the positional parameters, starting from one.
When
the expansion occurs within a double-quoted string
it expands to a single field with the value of each parameter
separated by the first character of the
IFS
variable,
or by a space if
IFS
is unset.
$@
Expands to the positional parameters, starting from one.
When
the expansion occurs within double-quotes, each positional
parameter expands as a separate argument.
If there are no positional parameters, the
expansion of
@
generates zero arguments, even when
@
is double-quoted.
What this basically means, for example, is
if
$1
is
``abc
''
and
$2
is
``def ghi
''
then
``$@
''
expands to
the two arguments:
"abc" "def ghi"
$#
Expands to the number of positional parameters.
$?
Expands to the exit status of the most recent pipeline.
$-
(hyphen) Expands to the current option flags (the single-letter
option names concatenated into a string) as specified on
invocation, by the
set
built-in command, or implicitly
by the shell.
$$
Expands to the process ID of the invoked shell.
A subshell
retains the same value of
$
as its parent.
$!
Expands to the process ID of the most recent background
command executed from the current shell.
For a
pipeline, the process ID is that of the last command in the
pipeline.
$0
(zero) Expands to the name of the shell or shell script.
Word Expansions
This clause describes the various expansions that are
performed on words.
Not all expansions are performed on
every word, as explained later.
Tilde expansions, parameter expansions, command substitutions,
arithmetic expansions, and quote removals that occur within
a single word expand to a single field.
It is only field
splitting or pathname expansion that can create multiple
fields from a single word.
The single exception to this rule is
the expansion of the special parameter
@
within double-quotes,
as was described above.
The order of word expansion is:
Tilde Expansion, Parameter Expansion, Command Substitution,
Arithmetic Expansion (these all occur at the same time).
Field Splitting is performed on fields generated by step (1)
unless the
IFS
variable is null.
Pathname Expansion (unless the
-f
option is in effect).
Quote Removal.
The
`$'
character is used to introduce parameter expansion, command
substitution, or arithmetic evaluation.
Tilde Expansion (substituting a user's home directory)
A word beginning with an unquoted tilde character
(`~'
)
is
subjected to tilde expansion.
All the characters up to a slash
(`/'
)
or the end of the word are treated as a username
and are replaced with the user's home directory.
If the
username is missing (as in
~/foobar )
the tilde is replaced with the value of the
HOME
variable (the current user's home directory).
Parameter Expansion
The format for parameter expansion is as follows:
where
expression
consists of all characters until the matching
`}'
Any
`}'
escaped by a backslash or within a quoted string, and characters in
embedded arithmetic expansions, command substitutions, and variable
expansions, are not examined in determining the matching
`}'
The simplest form for parameter expansion is:
The value, if any, of
parameter
is substituted.
The parameter name or symbol can be enclosed in braces, which are
optional except for positional parameters with more than one digit or
when parameter is followed by a character that could be interpreted as
part of the name.
If a parameter expansion occurs inside double-quotes:
Pathname expansion is not performed on the results of the
expansion.
Field splitting is not performed on the results of the
expansion, with the exception of the special parameter
@
In addition, a parameter expansion can be modified by using one of the
following formats.
${ parameter :- word }
Use Default Values.
If
parameter
is unset or null, the expansion of
word
is substituted; otherwise, the value of
parameter
is substituted.
${ parameter := word }
Assign Default Values.
If
parameter
is unset or null, the expansion of
word
is assigned to
parameter
In all cases, the
final value of
parameter
is substituted.
Only variables, not positional
parameters or special parameters, can be
assigned in this way.
${ parameter :? [word }
]
Indicate Error if Null or Unset.
If
parameter
is unset or null, the expansion of
word
(or a message indicating it is unset if
word
is omitted) is written to standard
error and the shell exits with a nonzero
exit status.
Otherwise, the value of
parameter
is substituted.
An
interactive shell need not exit.
${ parameter :+ word }
Use Alternate Value.
If
parameter
is unset or null, null is substituted;
otherwise, the expansion of
word
is substituted.
In the parameter expansions shown previously, use of the colon in the
format results in a test for a parameter that is unset or null; omission
of the colon results in a test for a parameter that is only unset.
${# parameter }
String Length.
The length in characters of
the value of
parameter
The following four varieties of parameter expansion provide for substring
processing.
In each case, pattern matching notation
(see
Sx Shell Patterns ) ,
rather than regular expression notation,
is used to evaluate the patterns.
If parameter is one of the special parameters
*
or
@
the result of the expansion is unspecified.
Enclosing the full parameter expansion string in double-quotes does not
cause the following four varieties of pattern characters to be quoted,
whereas quoting characters within the braces has this effect.
${ parameter % word }
Remove Smallest Suffix Pattern.
The
word
is expanded to produce a pattern.
The
parameter expansion then results in
parameter
with the smallest portion of the
suffix matched by the pattern deleted.
${ parameter %% word }
Remove Largest Suffix Pattern.
The
word
is expanded to produce a pattern.
The
parameter expansion then results in
parameter
with the largest portion of the
suffix matched by the pattern deleted.
${ parameter # word }
Remove Smallest Prefix Pattern.
The
word
is expanded to produce a pattern.
The
parameter expansion then results in
parameter
with the smallest portion of the
prefix matched by the pattern deleted.
${ parameter ## word }
Remove Largest Prefix Pattern.
The
word
is expanded to produce a pattern.
The
parameter expansion then results in
parameter
with the largest portion of the
prefix matched by the pattern deleted.
Command Substitution
Command substitution allows the output of a command to be substituted in
place of the command name itself.
Command substitution occurs when
the command is enclosed as follows:
or the backquoted version:
The shell expands the command substitution by executing command in a
subshell environment and replacing the command substitution
with the standard output of the command,
removing sequences of one or more newlines at the end of the substitution.
Embedded newlines before the end of the output are not removed;
however, during field splitting, they may be translated into spaces
depending on the value of
IFS
and the quoting that is in effect.
Arithmetic Expansion
Arithmetic expansion provides a mechanism for evaluating an arithmetic
expression and substituting its value.
The format for arithmetic expansion is as follows:
The
expression
is treated as if it were in double-quotes, except
that a double-quote inside the expression is not treated specially.
The
shell expands all tokens in the
expression
for parameter expansion,
command substitution, and quote removal.
Next, the shell treats this as an arithmetic expression and
substitutes the value of the expression.
White Space Splitting (Field Splitting)
After parameter expansion, command substitution, and
arithmetic expansion the shell scans the results of
expansions and substitutions that did not occur in double-quotes for
field splitting and multiple fields can result.
The shell treats each character of the
IFS
variable as a delimiter and uses
the delimiters to split the results of parameter expansion and command
substitution into fields.
Pathname Expansion (File Name Generation)
Unless the
-f
option is set,
file name generation is performed
after word splitting is complete.
Each word is
viewed as a series of patterns, separated by slashes.
The
process of expansion replaces the word with the names of
all existing files whose names can be formed by replacing
each pattern with a string that matches the specified pattern.
There are two restrictions on this: first, a pattern cannot match
a string containing a slash, and second,
a pattern cannot match a string starting with a period
unless the first character of the pattern is a period.
The next section describes the patterns used for both
Pathname Expansion and the
case
command.
Shell Patterns
A pattern consists of normal characters, which match themselves,
and meta-characters.
The meta-characters are
`!'
,
`*'
,
`?'
,
and
`['
These characters lose their special meanings if they are quoted.
When command or variable substitution is performed and the dollar sign
or back quotes are not double-quoted, the value of the
variable or the output of the command is scanned for these
characters and they are turned into meta-characters.
An asterisk
(`*'
)
matches any string of characters.
A question mark
(`?'
)
matches any single character.
A left bracket
(`['
)
introduces a character class.
The end of the character class is indicated by a
`]'
;
if the
`]'
is missing then the
`['
matches a
`['
rather than introducing a character class.
A character class matches any of the characters between the square brackets.
A range of characters may be specified using a minus sign.
The character class may be complemented by making an exclamation point
(`!'
)
the first character of the character class.
To include a
`]'
in a character class, make it the first character listed
(after the
`!'
,
if any).
To include a
`-'
,
make it the first or last character listed.
Built-in Commands
This section lists the commands which
are built-in because they need to perform some operation
that cannot be performed by a separate process.
In addition to
these, built-in versions of essential utilities
are provided for efficiency.
:
A null command that returns a 0 (true) exit value.
. file
The commands in the specified file are read and executed by the shell.
The
return
command may be used to return to the
.
command's caller.
If
file
contains any
`/'
characters, it is used as is.
Otherwise, the shell searches the
PATH
for the file.
If it is not found in the
PATH
it is sought in the current working directory.
If
name = string
is specified, the shell defines the alias
name
with value
string
If just
name
is specified, the value of the alias
name
is printed.
With no arguments, the
alias
built-in command prints the names and values of all defined aliases
(see
unalias )
Alias values are written with appropriate quoting so that they are
suitable for re-input to the shell.
Also see the
Sx Aliases
subsection.
bg [job ...
]
Continue the specified jobs
(or the current job if no jobs are given)
in the background.
builtin cmd [arg ...
]
Execute the specified built-in command,
cmd
This is useful when the user wishes to override a shell function
with the same name as a built-in command.
bind [-aeklrsv [key [command ]
]
]
List or alter key bindings for the line editor.
This command is documented in
editrc(5).
cd [-L | P [directory
]
]
Switch to the specified
directory
or to the directory specified in the
HOME
environment variable if no
directory
is specified.
If
directory
does not begin with
/ , .
or
..
then the directories listed in the
CDPATH
variable will be
searched for the specified
directory
If
CDPATH
is unset, the current directory is searched.
The format of
CDPATH
is the same as that of
PATH
In an interactive shell,
the
cd
command will print out the name of the directory
that it actually switched to
if this is different from the name that the user gave.
These may be different either because the
CDPATH
mechanism was used or because a symbolic link was crossed.
If the
-P
option is specified,
..
is handled physically and symbolic links are resolved before
..
components are processed.
If the
-L
option is specified,
..
is handled logically.
This is the default.
chdir
A synonym for the
cd
built-in command.
command [-p [utility [argument ...
]
]
]
command [-v | V [utility
]
]
The first form of invocation executes the specified
utility
as a simple command (see the
Sx Simple Commands
section).
If the
-p
option is specified, the command search is performed using a
default value of
PATH
that is guaranteed to find all of the standard utilities.
If the
-v
option is specified,
utility
is not executed but a description of its interpretation by the shell is
printed.
For ordinary commands the output is the path name; for shell built-in
commands, shell functions and keywords only the name is written.
Aliases are printed as
``alias name = value
''
The
-V
option is identical to
-v
except for the output.
It prints
``utility is description
''
where
description
is either
the path name to
utility
a shell builtin,
a shell function,
a shell keyword
or
an alias for
value
echo [-e | n [string ...
]
]
Print a space-separated list of the arguments to the standard output
and append a newline character.
-n
Suppress the output of the trailing newline.
-e
Process C-style backslash escape sequences.
The
echo
command understands the following character escapes:
\a
Alert (ring the terminal bell)
\b
Backspace
\c
Suppress the trailing newline (this has the side-effect of truncating the
line if it is not the last character)
\e
The ESC character
( ASCII
0x1b)
\f
Formfeed
\n
Newline
\r
Carriage return
\t
Horizontal tab
\v
Vertical tab
\\
Literal backslash
\0nnn
(Zero) The character whose octal value is
nnn
If
string
is not enclosed in quotes then the backslash itself must be escaped
with a backslash to protect it from the shell.
For example
$ echo -e "a\vb"
a
b
$ echo -e a\\vb
a
b
$ echo -e "a\\b"
a\b
$ echo -e a\\\\b
a\b
Only one of the
-e
and
-n
options may be specified.
eval string ...
Concatenate all the arguments with spaces.
Then re-parse and execute the command.
exec [command [arg ...]
]
Unless
command
is omitted,
the shell process is replaced with the specified program
(which must be a real program, not a shell built-in command or function).
Any redirections on the
exec
command are marked as permanent,
so that they are not undone when the
exec
command finishes.
exit [exitstatus
]
Terminate the shell process.
If
exitstatus
is given
it is used as the exit status of the shell;
otherwise the exit status of the preceding command is used.
export name ...
export [-p
]
The specified names are exported so that they will
appear in the environment of subsequent commands.
The only way to un-export a variable is to
unset
it.
The shell allows the value of a variable to be set
at the same time as it is exported by writing
With no arguments the
export
command lists the names
of all exported variables.
If the
-p
option is specified, the exported variables are printed as
``export name = value
''
lines, suitable for re-input to the shell.
false
A null command that returns a non-zero (false) exit value.
fc [-e editor [first [last
]
]
]
fc -l [-nr [first [last
]
]
]
fc -s [old = new [first
]
]
The
fc
built-in command lists, or edits and re-executes,
commands previously entered to an interactive shell.
-e editor
Use the editor named by
editor
to edit the commands.
The
editor
string is a command name,
subject to search via the
PATH
variable.
The value in the
FCEDIT
variable is used as a default when
-e
is not specified.
If
FCEDIT
is null or unset, the value of the
EDITOR
variable is used.
If
EDITOR
is null or unset,
ed(1)
is used as the editor.
-l (ell)
List the commands rather than invoking
an editor on them.
The commands are written in the
sequence indicated by the
first
and
last
operands, as affected by
-r
with each command preceded by the command number.
-n
Suppress command numbers when listing with
-l
-r
Reverse the order of the commands listed
(with
-l
or edited
(with neither
-l
nor
-s )
-s
Re-execute the command without invoking an editor.
first
last
Select the commands to list or edit.
The number of previous commands that can be accessed
are determined by the value of the
HISTSIZE
variable.
The value of
first
or
last
or both are one of the following:
[+ num
]
A positive number representing a command number;
command numbers can be displayed with the
-l
option.
-num
A negative decimal number representing the
command that was executed
num
of
commands previously.
For example, -1 is the immediately previous command.
string
A string indicating the most recently entered command
that begins with that string.
If the
old = new
operand is not also specified with
-s
the string form of the first operand cannot contain an embedded equal sign.
The following environment variables affect the execution of
fc
FCEDIT
Name of the editor to use for history editing.
HISTSIZE
The number of previous commands that are accessible.
fg [job
]
Move the specified
job
or the current job to the foreground.
getopts optstring var
The
POSIXgetopts
command.
The
getopts
command deprecates the older
getopt(1)
command.
The first argument should be a series of letters, each possibly
followed by a colon which indicates that the option takes an argument.
The specified variable is set to the parsed option.
The index of
the next argument is placed into the shell variable
OPTIND
If an option takes an argument, it is placed into the shell variable
OPTARG
If an invalid option is encountered,
var
is set to
`?'
It returns a false value (1) when it encounters the end of the options.
hash [-rv [command ...
]
]
The shell maintains a hash table which remembers the locations of commands.
With no arguments whatsoever, the
hash
command prints out the contents of this table.
Entries which have not been looked at since the last
cd
command are marked with an asterisk;
it is possible for these entries to be invalid.
With arguments, the
hash
command removes each specified
command
from the hash table (unless they are functions) and then locates it.
With the
-v
option,
hash
prints the locations of the commands as it finds them.
The
-r
option causes the
hash
command to delete all the entries in the hash table except for functions.
jobid [job
]
Print the process IDs of the processes in the specified
job
If the
job
argument is omitted, use the current job.
jobs [-lps [job ...
]
]
Print information about the specified jobs, or all jobs if no
job
argument is given.
The information printed includes job ID, status and command name.
If the
-l
option is specified, the PID of each job is also printed.
If the
-p
option is specified, only the process IDs for the process group leaders
are printed, one per line.
If the
-s
option is specified, only the PIDs of the job commands are printed, one per
line.
local [variable ... [-
]
]
See the
Sx Functions
subsection.
pwd [-L | P
]
Print the path of the current directory.
The built-in command may
differ from the program of the same name because the
built-in command remembers what the current directory
is rather than recomputing it each time.
This makes
it faster.
However, if the current directory is
renamed,
the built-in version of
pwd(1)
will continue to print the old name for the directory.
If the
-P
option is specified, symbolic links are resolved.
If the
-L
option is specified, the shell's notion of the current directory
is printed (symbolic links are not resolved).
This is the default.
The
prompt
is printed if the
-p
option is specified
and the standard input is a terminal.
Then a line is
read from the standard input.
The trailing newline
is deleted from the line and the line is split as
described in the section on
Sx White Space Splitting (Field Splitting)
above, and
the pieces are assigned to the variables in order.
If there are more pieces than variables, the remaining
pieces (along with the characters in
IFS
that separated them)
are assigned to the last variable.
If there are more variables than pieces, the remaining
variables are assigned the null string.
Backslashes are treated specially, unless the
-r
option is
specified.
If a backslash is followed by
a newline, the backslash and the newline will be
deleted.
If a backslash is followed by any other
character, the backslash will be deleted and the following
character will be treated as though it were not in
IFS
even if it is.
If the
-t
option is specified and the
timeout
elapses before any input is supplied,
the
read
command will return an exit status of 1 without assigning any values.
The
timeout
value may optionally be followed by one of
`s'
,
`m'
or
`h'
to explicitly specify seconds, minutes or hours.
If none is supplied,
`s'
is assumed.
The
-e
option exists only for backward compatibility with older scripts.
readonly [-p [name ...
]
]
Each specified
name
is marked as read only,
so that it cannot be subsequently modified or unset.
The shell allows the value of a variable to be set
at the same time as it is marked read only
by using the following form:
With no arguments the
readonly
command lists the names of all read only variables.
If the
-p
option is specified, the read-only variables are printed as
``readonly name = value
''
lines, suitable for re-input to the shell.
The
set
command performs three different functions:
With no arguments, it lists the values of all shell variables.
If options are given,
either in short form or using the long
``-/+o longname
''
form,
it sets or clears the specified options as described in the section called
Sx Argument List Processing .
If the
``-
''
option is specified,
set
will replace the shell's positional parameters with the subsequent
arguments.
If no arguments follow the
``-
''
option,
all the positional parameters will be cleared,
which is equivalent to executing the command
``shift $#
''
The
``-
''
flag may be omitted when specifying arguments to be used
as positional replacement parameters.
This is not recommended,
because the first argument may begin with a dash
(`-'
)
or a plus
(`+'
)
which the
set
command will interpret as a request to enable or disable options.
setvar variable value
Assigns the specified
value
to the specified
variable
The
setvar
command is intended to be used in functions that
assign values to variables whose names are passed as parameters.
In general it is better to write
``variable = value
''
rather than using
setvar
shift [n
]
Shift the positional parameters
n
times, or once if
n
is not specified.
A shift sets the value of
$1
to the value of
$2
the value of
$2
to the value of
$3
and so on,
decreasing the value of
$#
by one.
If there are zero positional parameters, shifting does not do anything.
Print the amount of time spent executing the shell and its children.
The first output line shows the user and system times for the shell
itself, the second one contains the user and system times for the
children.
trap [action signal ...
]
trap -l
Cause the shell to parse and execute
action
when any specified
signal
is received.
The signals are specified by name or number.
In addition, the pseudo-signal
EXIT
may be used to specify an
action
that is performed when the shell terminates.
The
action
may be an empty string or a dash
(`-'
)
the former causes the specified signal to be ignored
and the latter causes the default action to be taken.
Omitting the
action
is another way to request the default action, for compatibility reasons this
usage is not recommended though.
When the shell forks off a subshell,
it resets trapped (but not ignored) signals to the default action.
The
trap
command has no effect on signals that were ignored on entry to the shell.
Option
-l
causes the
trap
command to display a list of valid signal names.
true
A null command that returns a 0 (true) exit value.
type [name ...
]
Interpret each
name
as a command and print the resolution of the command search.
Possible resolutions are:
shell keyword, alias, shell built-in command, command, tracked alias
and not found.
For aliases the alias expansion is printed;
for commands and tracked aliases
the complete pathname of the command is printed.
ulimit [-HSabcdflmnstuv [limit
]
]
Set or display resource limits (see
getrlimit(2)).
If
limit
is specified, the named resource will be set;
otherwise the current resource value will be displayed.
If
-H
is specified, the hard limits will be set or displayed.
While everybody is allowed to reduce a hard limit,
only the superuser can increase it.
The
-S
option
specifies the soft limits instead.
When displaying limits,
only one of
-S
or
-H
can be given.
The default is to display the soft limits,
and to set both the hard and the soft limits.
Option
-a
causes the
ulimit
command to display all resources.
The parameter
limit
is not acceptable in this mode.
The remaining options specify which resource value is to be
displayed or modified.
They are mutually exclusive.
-b sbsize
The maximum size of socket buffer usage, in bytes.
-c coredumpsize
The maximal size of core dump files, in 512-byte blocks.
-d datasize
The maximal size of the data segment of a process, in kilobytes.
-f filesize
The maximal size of a file, in 512-byte blocks.
-l lockedmem
The maximal size of memory that can be locked by a process, in
kilobytes.
-m memoryuse
The maximal resident set size of a process, in kilobytes.
-n nofiles
The maximal number of descriptors that could be opened by a process.
-s stacksize
The maximal size of the stack segment, in kilobytes.
-t time
The maximal amount of CPU time to be used by each process, in seconds.
-u userproc
The maximal number of simultaneous processes for this user ID.
-v virtualmem
The maximal virtual size of a process, in kilobytes.
umask [-S [mask
]
]
Set the file creation mask (see
umask(2))
to the octal or symbolic (see
chmod(1))
value specified by
mask
If the argument is omitted, the current mask value is printed.
If the
-S
option is specified, the output is symbolic, otherwise the output is octal.
unalias [-a [name ...
]
]
The specified alias names are removed.
If
-a
is specified, all aliases are removed.
unset [-fv name ...
]
The specified variables or functions are unset and unexported.
If the
-v
option is specified or no options are given, the
name
arguments are treated as variable names.
If the
-f
option is specified, the
name
arguments are treated as function names.
wait [job
]
Wait for the specified
job
to complete and return the exit status of the last process in the
job
If the argument is omitted, wait for all jobs to complete
and return an exit status of zero.
Commandline Editing
When
is being used interactively from a terminal, the current command
and the command history
(see
fc
in
Sx Built-in Commands )
can be edited using
vi -mode
command line editing.
This mode uses commands similar
to a subset of those described in the
vi(1)
man page.
The command
``set -o vi
''
(or
``set -V
''
enables
vi -mode
editing and places
into
vi
insert mode.
With
vi -mode
enabled,
can be switched between insert mode and command mode by typing
Aq ESC .
Hitting
Aq return
while in command mode will pass the line to the shell.
Similarly, the
``set -o emacs
''
(or
``set -E
''
command can be used to enable a subset of
emacs -style
command line editing features.
ENVIRONMENT
The following environment variables affect the execution of
:
CDPATH
The search path used with the
cd
built-in.
EDITOR
The fallback editor used with the
fc
built-in.
If not set, the default editor is
ed(1).
FCEDIT
The default editor used with the
fc
built-in.
HISTSIZE
The number of previous commands that are accessible.
HOME
The starting directory of
.
IFS
Input Field Separators.
This is normally set to
Aq space ,
Aq tab ,
and
Aq newline .
See the
Sx White Space Splitting
section for more details.
MAIL
The name of a mail file, that will be checked for the arrival of new
mail.
Overridden by
MAILPATH
MAILPATH
A colon
(`:'
)
separated list of file names, for the shell to check for incoming
mail.
This environment setting overrides the
MAIL
setting.
There is a maximum of 10 mailboxes that can be monitored at once.
PATH
The default search path for executables.
See the
Sx Path Search
section for details.
PS1
The primary prompt string, which defaults to
``$
''
unless you are the superuser, in which case it defaults to
``#
''
PS2
The secondary prompt string, which defaults to
``>
''
PS4
The prefix for the trace output (if
-x
is active).
The default is
``+
''
TERM
The default terminal setting for the shell.
This is inherited by children of the shell, and is used in the history
editing modes.
EXIT STATUS
Errors that are detected by the shell, such as a syntax error, will
cause the shell to exit with a non-zero exit status.
If the shell is not an interactive shell, the execution of the shell
file will be aborted.
Otherwise the shell will return the exit status of the last command
executed, or if the
exit
builtin is used with a numeric argument, it
will return the argument.
