Logo

Charles Steinkuehler's LEAF/LRP Website


 



NAME

       sh - command interpreter (shell)


SYNOPSIS

       sh [-/+aCefnuvxIimsVEb] [-/+o longname] [arg ...]


DESCRIPTION

       Sh is the standard command interpreter for the system.
       The current version of sh is in the process of being
       changed to conform with the POSIX 1003.2 and 1003.2a spec­
       ifications 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 (run GNU's bash if
       you want that).  Only features designated by POSIX, plus a
       few Berkeley extensions, are being incorporated into this
       shell.  We expect POSIX conformance by the time 4.4 BSD is
       released.  This man page is not intended to be a tutorial
       or 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 running 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 and the file can be executed directly by the
       shell.

       Invocation

       If no args are present and if the standard input of the
       shell is connected to a terminal (or if the -i flag 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/pro­
       file and .profile 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 next 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.  To set the ENV variable
       to some file, place the following line in your .profile of
       your home directory

                 ENV=$HOME/.shinit; export ENV

       substituting for ``.shinit'' any filename you wish.  Since
       the ENV file is read for every invocation of the shell,
       including shell scripts and non-interactive shells, the
       following paradigm is useful for restricting commands in
       the ENV file to interactive invocations.  Place commands
       within the ``case'' and ``esac'' below (these commands are
       described later):

            case $- in *i*)
                 # commands for interactive use only
                 ...
            esac

       If command line arguments besides the options have been
       specified, then the shell treats the first argument as the
       name of a file from which to read commands (a shell
       script), and the remaining arguments are set as the posi­
       tional parameters of the shell ($1, $2, etc).  Otherwise,
       the shell reads commands from its standard input.

       Argument List Processing

       All of the single letter options have a corresponding name
       that can be used as an argument to the '-o' option. The
       set -o name is provided next to the single letter option
       in the description below.  Specifying a dash ``-'' turns
       the option on, while using a plus ``+'' disables the
       option.  The following options can be set from the command
       line or with the set(1) builtin (described later).

       -a    allexport
              Export all variables assigned to.  (UNIMPLEMENTED
              for 4.4alpha)

       -C    noclobber
              Don't overwrite existing files with ``>''.  (UNIM­
              PLEMENTED for 4.4alpha)

       -e    errexit
              If not interactive, exit immediately if any
              untested command fails.  The exit status of a
              command is considered to be explicitly tested if
              the command is used to control an if, elif, while,
              or until; or if the command is the left hand
              operand of an ``&&'' or ``||'' operator.

       -f    noglob
              Disable pathname expansion.

       -n    noexec
              If not interactive, read commands but do not exe­
              cute them.  This is useful for checking the syntax
              of shell scripts.

       -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.  (UNIM­
              PLEMENTED for 4.4alpha)

       -v    verbose
              The shell writes its input to standard error as it
              is read.  Useful for debugging.

       -x    xtrace
              Write each command to standard error (preceded by a
              '+ ') before it is executed.  Useful for debugging.

       -I    ignoreeof
              Ignore EOF's from input when interactive.

       -i    interactive
              Force the shell to behave interactively.

       -m    monitor
              Turn on job control (set automatically when inter­
              active).

       -s    stdin
              Read commands from standard input (set automati­
              cally if no file arguments are present).  This
              option has no effect when set after the shell has
              already started running (i.e. with set(1)).

       -V    vi
              Enable the built-in vi(1) command line editor (dis­
              ables -E if it has been set).

       -E    emacs
              Enable the built-in emacs(1) command line editor
              (disables -V if it has been set).

       -b    notify
              Enable asynchronous notification of background job
              completion.  (UNIMPLEMENTED for 4.4alpha)

       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 that are special to
       the shell called ``operators''.  There are two types of
       operators: control operators and redirection operators
       (their meaning is discussed later).  Following is a list
       of operators:

       Control operators: &  &&  (  )  ;  ;; | || <newline>

       Redirection operator:  <  >  >|  <<  >>  <&  >&  <<-  <>

       Quoting

       Quoting is used to remove the special meaning of certain
       characters or words to the shell, such as operators,
       whitespace, or keywords.  There are three types of quot­
       ing: matched single quotes, matched double quotes, and
       backslash.

       Backslash

       A backslash preserves the literal meaning of the following
       character, with the exception of <newline>.  A backslash
       preceding a <newline> is treated as a line continuation.

       Single Quotes

       Enclosing characters in single quotes preserves the lit­
       eral 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 dollarsign ($),
       backquote (`), and backslash (\).  The backslash inside
       double quotes is historically weird, and serves to quote
       only the following characters: $  `  "  \  <newline>.
       Otherwise it remains literal.

       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:

          ! elif fi   while     case
          else   for  then {    }
          do     done until     if   esac

       Their meaning is discussed later.

       Aliases

       An alias is a name and corresponding value set using the
       alias(1) builtin 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 <return>

            would become

          ls -F foobar <return>

       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.

       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 POSIX 1003.2
       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 sim­
       ple 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 per­
       forms the following actions:

       1) 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.

       2) The remaining words are expanded as described in the
       section called ``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.

       3) 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:

                 [n] redir-op file

       where redir-op is one of the redirection operators men­
       tioned previously.  Following is a list of the possible
       redirections.  The [n] is an optional number, as in '3'
       (not '[3]'), that refers to a file descriptor.

       [n]> file
              Redirect standard output (or n) to file.

       [n]>| file
              Same, but override the -C option.

       [n]>> file
              Append standard output (or n) to file.

       [n]< file
              Redirect standard input (or n) from file.

       [n1]<&n2
              Duplicate standard input (or n1) from file descrip­
              tor n2.

       [n]<&- Close standard input (or n).

       [n1]>&n2
              Duplicate standard output (or n) from n2.

       [n]>&- Close standard output (or n).

       [n]<> file
              Open file for reading and writing on standard input
              (or n).

       The following redirection is often called a ``here-docu­
       ment''.

           [n]<< delimiter
               here-doc-text...
           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
       ``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,
       builtin commands, and normal programs -- and the command
       is searched for (by name) in that order.  They each are
       executed in a different way.

       When a shell function is executed, all of the shell posi­
       tional 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 com­
       mand (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 defi­
       nition is executed.   The positional parameters are
       restored to their original values when the command com­
       pletes.  This all occurs within the current shell.

       Shell builtins are executed internally to the shell,
       without spawning a new process.

       Otherwise, if the command name doesn't match a function or
       builtin, the command is searched for as a normal program
       in the filesystem (as described in the next section).
       When a normal program is executed, the shell runs the pro­
       gram, 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 "#!", so execve(2) returns ENOEXEC
       then) 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 loca­
       tion of hashed commands located in the parent shell will
       be remembered by the child.

       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 proce­
       dure".

       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
       builtin command by that name.  If a builtin command is not
       found, one of two things happen:

       1) Command names containing a slash are simply executed
       without performing any searches.

       2) The shell searches each entry in PATH in turn for the
       command.  The value of the PATH variable should be a
       series of entries separated by colons.  Each entry con­
       sists 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 builtin com­
       mands return exit codes, as does an executed shell func­
       tion.

       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:

       [!] command1 [ | command2 ...]

       The standard output of command1 is connected to the stan­
       dard input of command2. The standard input, standard out­
       put, or both of a command is considered to be assigned by
       the pipeline before any redirection specified by redirec­
       tion 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 speci­
       fied 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 com­
       mand1 to the standard input of command2.

       A ; or <newline> terminator causes the preceding AND-OR-
       list (described next) to be executed sequentially; a &
       causes asynchronous execution of the preceding AND-OR-
       list.

       Note that unlike some other shells, each process in the
       pipeline is a child of the invoking shell (unless it is a
       shell builtin, in which case it executes in the current
       shell -- but any effect it has on the environment is
       wiped).

       Background Commands -- &

       If a command is terminated by the control operator amper­
       sand (&), the shell executes the command asynchronously --
       that is, the shell does not wait for the command to finish
       before executing the next command.

       The format for running a command in background is:

       command1 & [command2 & ...]

       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 termi­
       nated by one of these three characters.  The commands in a
       list are executed in the order they are written.  If com­
       mand is followed by an ampersand, the shell starts the
       command and immediately proceed 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 iff the exit status of the first command is zero.
       ``||'' is similar, but executes the second command iff 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 list
           then list
           [ elif list
           then    list ] ...
           [ else list ]
           fi

       The syntax of the while command is

           while list
           do   list
           done

       The two lists are executed repeatedly while the exit sta­
       tus of the first list is zero.  The until command is simi­
       lar, 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   list
           done

       The words are expanded, and then the list is executed
       repeatedly with the variable set to each word in turn.  do
       and done may be replaced with ``{'' and ``}''.

       The syntax of the break and continue command is

           break [ num ]
           continue [ num ]

       Break terminates the num innermost for or while loops.
       Continue continues with the next iteration of the inner­
       most loop.  These are implemented as builtin commands.

       The syntax of the case command is

           case word in
           pattern) list ;;
           ...
           esac

       The pattern can actually be one or more patterns (see
       Shell Patterns described later), separated by ``|'' char­
       acters.

       Grouping Commands Together

       Commands may be grouped by writing either

           (list)

       or

           { list; }

       The first of these executes the commands in a subshell.
       Builtin commands grouped into a (list) will not affect the
       current shell.  The second form does not fork another
       shell so is slightly more efficient.  Grouping commands
       together this way allows you to redirect their output as
       though they were one program:

           { echo -n "hello"; echo " world" } > greeting

       Functions

       The syntax of a function definition is

           name ( ) command

       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 a local command.  This should appear as the first
       statement of a function, and the syntax is

           local [ variable | - ] ...

       Local is implemented as a builtin 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 you make the vari­
       able x 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 vari­
       able named x.

       The only special parameter than can be made local is
       ``-''.  Making ``-'' local 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

           return [ exitstatus ]

       It terminates the currently executing function.  Return is
       implemented as a builtin 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

           name=value

       Variables set by the user must have a name consisting
       solely of alphabetics, numerics, and underscores - the
       first of which 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
       (n > 0).  The shell sets these initially to the values of
       its command line arguments that follow the name of the
       shell script.  The set(1) builtin can also be used to set
       or reset them.

       Special Parameters

       A special parameter is a parameter denoted by one of the
       following special characters.  The value of the parameter
       is listed next to its character.

       *      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 sep­
              arate argument.  If there are no positional parame­
              ters, 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 argu­
              ments:

              "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 builtin com­
              mand, 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 back­
              ground 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 per­
       formed 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:

       (1)  Tilde Expansion, Parameter Expansion, Command Substi­
       tution, Arithmetic Expansion (these all occur at the same
       time).

       (2)  Field Splitting is performed on fields generated by
       step (1) unless the IFS variable is null.

       (3)  Pathname Expansion (unless set -f is in effect).

       (4)  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:

           ${expression}

       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 expan­
       sions, are not examined in determining the matching }.

       The simplest form for parameter expansion is:

           ${parameter}

       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:

       1) Pathname expansion is not performed on the results of
       the expansion.

       2) Field splitting is not performed on the results of the
       expansion, with the exception of @.

       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 parame­
              ter.  In all cases, the final value of parameter is
              substituted.  Only variables, not positional param­
              eters 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 writ­
              ten 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 Alternative 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 pro­
       vide for substring processing.  In each case, pattern
       matching notation (see Shell Patterns), rather than regu­
       lar expression notation, is used to evaluate the patterns.
       If parameter is * 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 pat­
              tern 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 pat­
              tern 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 pat­
              tern 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 pat­
              tern 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 fol­
       lows:

              $(command)

       or (``backquoted'' version):

              `command`

       The shell expands the command substitution by executing
       command in a subshell environment and replacing the com­
       mand substitution with the standard output of the command,
       removing sequences of one or more <newline>s at the end of
       the substitution.  (Embedded <newline>s before the end of
       the output are not removed; however, during field split­
       ting, they may be translated into <space>s, depending on
       the value of IFS and 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:

              $((expression))

       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 expan­
       sions 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 as a delimiter
       and use the delimiters to split the results of parameter
       expansion and command substitution into fields.

       Pathname Expansion (File Name Generation)

       Unless the -f flag is set, file name generation is per­
       formed 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 sec­
       ond, 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(1) command.

       Shell Patterns

       A pattern consists of normal characters, which match them­
       selves, 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 intro­
       ducing 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 exclama­
       tion 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
       minus sign, make it the first or last character listed

       Builtins

       This section lists the builtin commands which are builtin
       because they need to perform some  operation that can't be
       performed by a separate process. In addition to these,
       there are several other commands that may be builtin for
       efficiency (e.g. printf(1), echo(1), test(1), etc).

       :      A null command that returns a 0 (true) exit value.

       . file The commands in the specified file are read and
              executed by the shell.

       alias  [ name[=string] ...  ]
              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
              builtin prints the names and values of all defined
              aliases (see unalias).

       bg [ job ] ...
              Continue the specified jobs (or the current job if
              no jobs are given) in the background.

       command command arg...
              Execute the specified builtin command.  (This is
              useful when you have a shell function with the same
              name as a builtin command.)

       cd [ directory ]
              Switch to the specified directory (default $HOME).
              If the an entry for CDPATH appears in the environ­
              ment of the cd command or the shell variable CDPATH
              is set and the directory name does not begin with a
              slash, then the directories listed in CDPATH will
              be searched for the specified directory.  The for­
              mat 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.

       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 builtin 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...
              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 it is exported by writing
                  export name=value

              With no arguments the export command lists the
              names of all exported variables.

       fc  [-e editor] [first [last]]

       fc  -l [-nr] [first [last]]

       fc  -s [old=new] [first]
              The fc builtin lists, or edits and re-executes,
              commands previously entered to an interactive
              shell.

            -e editor
              Use the editor named by editor to edit the com­
              mands.  The editor string is a command name, sub­
              ject 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 deter­
              mined by the value of the HISTSIZE variable.  The
              value of first or last or both are one of the fol­
              lowing:

            [+]number
              A positive number representing a command number;
              command numbers can be displayed with the -l
              option.

            -number
              A negative decimal number representing the command
              that was executed number of commands previously.
              For example, -1 is the immediately previous com­
              mand.

            string
              A string indicating the most recently entered com­
              mand 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 embed­
              ded equal sign.

            The following environment variables affect the
              execution of fc:

            FCEDIT
              Name of the editor to use.

            HISTSIZE
              The number of previous commands that are access­
              able.

       fg [ job ]
              Move the specified job or the current job to the
              foreground.

       getopts optstring var
              The POSIX getopts command.  The getopts command
              deprecates the older getopt command.  The first
              argument should be a series of letters, each possi­
              bly 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 what­
              soever, 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 the speci­
              fied commands from the hash table (unless they are
              functions) and then locates them.   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 id's of the processes in the job.
              If the job argument is omitted, use the current
              job.

       jobs   This command lists out all the background processes
              which are children of the current shell process.

       pwd    Print the current directory.  The builtin command
              may differ from the program of the same name
              because the builtin command remembers what the cur­
              rent directory is rather than recomputing it each
              time.  This makes it faster.  However, if the cur­
              rent directory is renamed, the builtin version of
              pwd will continue to print the old name for the
              directory.

       read [ -p prompt ] [ -r ] variable...
              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 new­
              line is deleted from the line and the line is split
              as described in the section on word 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.

              By default, unless the -r option is specified, the
              backslash (\) acts as an escape character, causing
              the following character to be treated literally.
              If a backslash is followed by a newline, the back­
              slash and the newline will be deleted.

       readonly name...
              The specified names are marked as read only, so
              that they cannot be subsequently modified or unset.
              The shell allows the value of a variable to be set
              at the same time it is marked read only by writing

       readonly name=value
              With no arguments the readonly command lists the
              names of all read only variables.

       set [ { -options | +options | -- } ] arg...
              The set command performs three different functions.

              With no arguments, it lists the values of all shell
              variables.

              If options are given, it sets the specified option
              flags, or clears them as described in the section
              called ``Argument List Processing''.

              The third use of the set command is to set the val­
              ues of the shell's positional parameters to the
              specified args.   To change the positional parame­
              ters without changing any options, use ``--'' as
              the first argument to set.  If no args are present,
              the set command will clear all the positional
              parameters (equivalent to executing ``shift $#''.)

       setvar variable value
              Assigns value to variable. (In general it is better
              to write variable=value rather than using setvar.
              Setvar is intended to be used in functions that
              assign values to variables whose names are passed
              as parameters.)

       shift [ n ]
              Shift the positional parameters n times.  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 doesn't do anything.

       trap [ action ] signal...
              Cause the shell to parse and execute action when
              any of the specified signals are received. The sig­
              nals are specified by signal number. Action may be
              null or omitted; the former causes the specified
              signal to be ignored and the latter causes the
              default action to be taken. 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.

       type [name]...
              Interpret each name as a command and print the res­
              olution of the command search. Possible resolutions
              are: shell keyword, alias, shell builtin, 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 [ -H | -S ] [ -a | -tfdscmlpn [ value ] ]
              Inquire about or set the hard or soft limits on
              processes or set new limits.  The choice between
              hard limit (which no process is allowed to violate,
              and which may not be raised once it has been low­
              ered) and soft limit (which causes processes to be
              signalled but not necessarily killed, and which may
              be raised) is made with these flags:

            -H  set or inquire about hard limits

            -S  set or inquire about soft limits
              If neither -H nor -S is specified, the soft limit
              is displayed or both limits are set.  If both are
              specified, the last one wins.

            The limit to be interrogated or set, then, is chosen
            by specifying any one of these flags:

            -a
              show all the current limits

            -t
              show or set the limit on CPU time (in seconds)

            -f
              show or set the limit on the largest file that can
              be created (in 512-byte blocks)

            -d
              show or set the limit on the data segment size of a
              process (in kilobytes)

            -s
              show or set the limit on the stack size of a pro­
              cess (in kilobytes)

            -c
              show or set the limit on the largest core dump size
              that can be produced (in 512-byte blocks)

            -m
              show or set the limit on the total physical memory
              that can be in use by a process (in kilobytes)

            -l
              show or set the limit on how much memory a process
              can lock with (in kilobytes)

            -p
              show or set the limit on the number of processes
              this user can have at one time

            -n
              show or set the limit on the number files a process
              can have open at once

            If none of these is specified, it is the limit on
            file size that is shown or set.  If value is speci­
            fied, the limit is set to that number; otherwise the
            current limit is displayed.

       umask [ mask ]
              Set the value of umask (see umask(2)) to the speci­
              fied octal value. If the argument is omitted, the
              umask value is printed.

       unalias [-a] [name]
              If ``name'' is specified, the shell removes that
              alias.  If ``-a'' is specified, all aliases are
              removed.

       unset name...
              The specified variables and functions are unset and
              unexported. If a given name corresponds to both a
              variable and a function, both the variable and the
              function are unset.

       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 com­
              plete and the return an exit status of zero.

       Command Line Editing

       When sh is being used interactively from a terminal, the
       current command and the command history (see fc in
       Builtins) can be edited using vi-mode command-line edit­
       ing. This mode uses commands, described below, similar to
       a subset of those described in the vi man page.  The com­
       mand set -o vi enables vi-mode editing and place sh into
       vi insert mode.  With vi-mode enabled, sh can be switched
       between insert mode and command mode. The editor is not
       described in full here, but will be in a later document.
       It's similar to vi: typing <ESC> will throw you into com­
       mand VI command mode. Hitting <return> while in command
       mode will pass the line to the shell.


HISTORY

       A sh command appeared in Version 1 AT&T UNIX.  It was,
       however, unmaintainable so we wrote this one.


Man(1) output converted with man2html