- Bash
- Invocation
- Configuration files
- Shell and environment variables
- Command line
- Tab completion
- Single-tab
- Common programs and options
- Customize per-command
- History
- History completion
- History customization
- Disable history
- Mimic Zsh run-help ability
- Aliases
- Tips and tricks
- Prompt customization
- Syntax highlighting and autosuggestions
- Command not found
- Disable Ctrl+z in terminal
- Clear the screen after logging out
- Auto «cd» when entering just a path
- Autojump
- Prevent overwrite of files
- Use directory stack to navigate
- Troubleshooting
- Line wrap on window resize
- Shell exits even if ignoreeof set
- Checking errors by analyzing scripts
- See also
- Tutorials
- Community
- Examples
Bash
Bash (Bourne-again Shell) is a command-line shell/programming language by the GNU Project. Its name alludes to its predecessor, the long-deprecated Bourne shell. Bash can be run on most UNIX-like operating systems, including GNU/Linux.
Bash is the default command-line shell on Arch Linux.
Invocation
Bash behaviour can be altered depending on how it is invoked. Some descriptions of different modes follow.
If Bash is spawned by login in a TTY, by an SSH daemon, or similar means, it is considered a login shell. This mode can also be engaged using the -l / —login command line option.
Bash is considered an interactive shell when its standard input, output and error are connected to a terminal (for example, when run in a terminal emulator), and it is not started with the -c option or non-option arguments (for example, bash script ). All interactive shells source /etc/bash.bashrc and ~/.bashrc , while interactive login shells also source /etc/profile and ~/.bash_profile .
Note: In Arch /bin/sh (which used to be the Bourne shell executable) is symlinked to /bin/bash . If Bash is invoked with the name sh , it tries to mimic the startup behavior of historical versions of sh , including POSIX compatibility.
Configuration files
Bash will attempt to execute a set of startup files depending on how it was invoked. See the Bash Startup Files section of the GNU Bash manual for a complete description.
File | Description | Login shells (see note) | Interactive, non-login shells |
---|---|---|---|
/etc/profile | Sources application settings in /etc/profile.d/*.sh and /etc/bash.bashrc . | Yes | No |
~/.bash_profile | Per-user, after /etc/profile . If this file does not exist, ~/.bash_login and ~/.profile are checked in that order. The skeleton file /etc/skel/.bash_profile also sources ~/.bashrc . | Yes | No |
~/.bash_logout | Per-user, after exit of a login shell. | Yes | No |
/etc/bash.bash_logout | Depends on the -DSYS_BASH_LOGOUT=»/etc/bash.bash_logout» compilation flag. After exit of a login shell. | Yes | No |
/etc/bash.bashrc | Depends on the -DSYS_BASHRC=»/etc/bash.bashrc» compilation flag. Sources /usr/share/bash-completion/bash_completion . | No | Yes |
~/.bashrc | Per-user, after /etc/bash.bashrc . | No | Yes |
- Login shells can be non-interactive when called with the —login argument.
- While interactive, non-login shells do not source ~/.bash_profile , they still inherit the environment from their parent process (which may be a login shell). See GregsWiki:ProcessManagement#On processes, environments and inheritance for details.
Shell and environment variables
The behavior of Bash and programs run by it can be influenced by a number of environment variables. Environment variables are used to store useful values such as command search directories, or which browser to use. When a new shell or script is launched it inherits its parent’s variables, thus starting with an internal set of shell variables[1].
These shell variables in Bash can be exported in order to become environment variables:
VARIABLE=content export VARIABLE
Environment variables are conventionally placed in ~/.profile or /etc/profile so that other Bourne-compatible shells can use them.
See Environment variables for more general information.
Command line
Bash command line is managed by the separate library called Readline. Readline provides emacs and vi styles of shortcuts for interacting with the command line, i.e. moving back and forth on the word basis, deleting words etc. It is also Readline’s responsibility to manage history of input commands. Last, but not least, it allows you to create macros.
Tab completion
Tab completion is the option to auto-complete typed commands by pressing Tab (enabled by default).
Single-tab
It may require up to three tab-presses to show all possible completions for a command. To reduce the needed number of tab-presses, see Readline#Faster completion.
Common programs and options
By default, Bash only tab-completes commands, filenames, and variables. The package bash-completion extends this by adding more specialized tab completions for common commands and their options, which can be enabled by sourcing /usr/share/bash-completion/bash_completion (which has been already sourced in Arch’s /etc/bash.bashrc ). With bash-completion , normal completions (such as $ ls file.* ) will behave differently; however, they can be re-enabled with $ compopt -o bashdefault program (see [2] and [3] for more detail).
Customize per-command
By default, Bash only tab-completes file names following a command. You can change it to complete command names using complete -c :
or complete command names and file names with -cf :
History
History completion
You can bind the up and down arrow keys to search through Bash’s history (see: Readline#History and Readline Init File Syntax):
bind '"\e[A": history-search-backward' bind '"\e[B": history-search-forward'
or to affect all readline programs:
"\e[A": history-search-backward "\e[B": history-search-forward
History customization
The HISTCONTROL variable can prevent certain commands from being logged to the history.
To stop logging of consecutive identical commands:
export HISTCONTROL=ignoredups
To remove all but the last identical command:
export HISTCONTROL=erasedups
To avoid saving commands that start with a space:
export HISTCONTROL=ignorespace
To avoid saving consecutive identical commands, and commands that start with a space:
export HISTCONTROL=ignoreboth
To remove all but the last identical command, and commands that start with a space:
export HISTCONTROL="erasedups:ignorespace"
Disable history
To disable the bash history only temporarily:
The commands entered now are not logged to the $HISTFILE .
For example, now you can hash passwords with printf secret | sha256sum , or hide GPG usage like gpg -eaF secret-pubkey.asc and your secret is not written to disk.
To disable all bash history:
. and just to make sure, destroy your old histfile forever:
$ wipe -i -l2 -x4 -p4 "$HISTFILE" $ ln -sv /dev/null "$HISTFILE"
Mimic Zsh run-help ability
Zsh can invoke the manual for the command preceding the cursor by pressing Alt+h . A similar behaviour is obtained in Bash using this Readline bind:
run-help() < help "$READLINE_LINE" 2>/dev/null || man "$READLINE_LINE"; > bind -m vi-insert -x '"\eh": run-help' bind -m emacs -x '"\eh": run-help'
This assumes are you using the (default) Emacs editing mode.
Aliases
alias is a command, which enables a replacement of a word with another string. It is often used for abbreviating a system command, or for adding default arguments to a regularly used command.
Personal aliases can be stored in ~/.bashrc or any separate file sourced from ~/.bashrc . System-wide aliases (which affect all users) belong in /etc/bash.bashrc . See [4] for example aliases.
Tips and tricks
Prompt customization
Syntax highlighting and autosuggestions
blesh-git AUR is a command line editor written in pure Bash which replaces Readline. It has many enhanced features like syntax highlighting, autosuggestions, menu-completion, abbreviations, Vim editing mode, hook functions, and more.
After installing it, source it in an interactive session. Configurations are explained in depth in the ~/.blerc file and at the wiki. The stable blesh AUR package is also available.
Command not found
pkgfile includes a «command not found» hook that will automatically search the official repositories, when entering an unrecognized command.
You need to source the hook to enable it, for example:
source /usr/share/doc/pkgfile/command-not-found.bash
Then attempting to run an unavailable command will show the following info:
abiword may be found in the following packages: extra/abiword 3.0.1-2 /usr/bin/abiword
Note: The pkgfile database may need to be updated before this will work. See pkgfile#Installation for details.
Disable Ctrl+z in terminal
You can disable the Ctrl+z feature (pauses/closes your application) by wrapping your command like this:
#!/bin/bash trap "" 20 adom
Now, when you accidentally press Ctrl+z in adom AUR instead of Shift+z , nothing will happen because Ctrl+z will be ignored.
Clear the screen after logging out
To clear the screen after logging out on a virtual terminal:
Auto «cd» when entering just a path
Bash can automatically prepend cd when entering just a path in the shell. For example:
But after adding one line into .bashrc file:
[user@host ~]$ /etc cd /etc [user@host etc]$
Autojump
autojump-git AUR is a python script which allows navigating the file system by searching for strings in a database with the user’s most-visited paths.
Note: This software has not seen a commit pushed by upstream since September of 2018 and should be considered abandoned.
zoxide is an alternative which has additional features and performance improvements compared to the original autojump and can serve as a drop-in replacement for autojump.
Prevent overwrite of files
For the current session, to disallow existing regular files to be overwritten by redirection of shell output:
This is identical to set -C .
To make the changes persistent for your user:
To manually overwrite a file while noclobber is set:
Use directory stack to navigate
pushd and popd can be used to push or pop directories to a stack while switching to them. This can be useful for «replaying» your navigation history.
[user@host ~] pushd /tmp/dir1 [user@host /tmp/dir1] pushd /var/lib [user@host/var/lib] popd [user@host/tmp/dir1] popd [user@host ~]
Troubleshooting
Line wrap on window resize
When resizing a terminal emulator, Bash may not receive the resize signal. This will cause typed text to not wrap correctly and overlap the prompt. The checkwinsize shell option checks the window size after each command and, if necessary, updates the values of LINES and COLUMNS .
Shell exits even if ignoreeof set
If you have set the ignoreeof option and you find that repeatedly hitting ctrl-d causes the shell to exit, it is because this option only allows 10 consecutive invocations of this keybinding (or 10 consecutive EOF characters, to be precise), before exiting the shell.
To allow higher values, you have to use the IGNOREEOF variable.
Checking errors by analyzing scripts
The package shellcheck analyzes bash (and other shell) scripts, prints possible errors, and suggests better coding.
There is also the web site shellcheck.net of the same purpose, based on this program.
See also
- Wikipedia:Bash (Unix shell)
- Bash Reference Manual, or /usr/share/doc/bash/bashref.html
- Readline Init File Syntax
- The Bourne-Again Shell — The third chapter of The Architecture of Open Source Applications
- PS1 generator — generate your .bashrc/PS1 bash prompt with a drag and drop interface
- Even more useful .bashrc commands