xref: /freebsd/bin/sh/sh.1 (revision 7bd8da72c5814b486ae7f492286fe3ac0a5bf03d)

.\"-
.\" SPDX-License-Identifier: BSD-3-Clause
.\"
.\" Copyright (c) 1991, 1993
.\"	The Regents of the University of California.  All rights reserved.
.\"
.\" This code is derived from software contributed to Berkeley by
.\" Kenneth Almquist.
.\"
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.\" modification, are permitted provided that the following conditions
.\" are met:
.\" 1. Redistributions of source code must retain the above copyright
.\"    notice, this list of conditions and the following disclaimer.
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.\"    notice, this list of conditions and the following disclaimer in the
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.\"    may be used to endorse or promote products derived from this software
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.Dd March 8, 2025
.Dt SH 1
.Os
.Sh NAME
.Nm sh
.Nd command interpreter (shell)
.Sh SYNOPSIS
.Nm
.Op Fl /+abCEefhIilmnPpTuVvx
.Op Fl /+o Ar longname
.Oo
.Ar script
.Op Ar arg ...
.Oc
.Nm
.Op Fl /+abCEefhIilmnPpTuVvx
.Op Fl /+o Ar longname
.Fl c Ar string
.Oo
.Ar name
.Op Ar arg ...
.Oc
.Nm
.Op Fl /+abCEefhIilmnPpTuVvx
.Op Fl /+o Ar longname
.Fl s
.Op Ar arg ...
.Sh DESCRIPTION
The
.Nm
utility is the standard command interpreter for the system.
The current version of
.Nm
is close to the
.St -p1003.1
specification for the shell.
It only supports features
designated by POSIX,
plus a few Berkeley extensions.
This man page is not intended to be a tutorial nor a complete
specification of the shell.
.Ss 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
.Xr 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.
.Ss Invocation
.\"
.\" XXX This next sentence is incredibly confusing.
.\"
If no arguments are present and if the standard input of the shell
is connected to a terminal
(or if the
.Fl 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
.Pq Ql - ,
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
.Pa /etc/profile
and then
.Pa .profile
in a user's home directory,
if they exist.
If the environment variable
.Ev ENV
is set on entry to a shell, or is set in the
.Pa .profile
of a login shell, the shell then subjects its value to parameter expansion
and arithmetic expansion and reads commands from the named file.
Therefore, a user should place commands that are to be executed only
at login time in the
.Pa .profile
file, and commands that are executed for every shell inside the
.Ev ENV
file.
The user can set the
.Ev ENV
variable to some file by placing the following line in the file
.Pa .profile
in the home directory,
substituting for
.Pa .shrc
the filename desired:
.Pp
.Dl "ENV=$HOME/.shrc; export ENV"
.Pp
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
.Li ( $1 , $2 ,
etc.).
Otherwise, the shell reads commands
from its standard input.
.Pp
Unlike older versions of
.Nm
the
.Ev 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
.Ev ENV
scripts.
.Ss Argument List Processing
All of the single letter options to
.Nm
have a corresponding long name,
with the exception of
.Fl c
and
.Fl /+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
.Fl /+o
option of
.Nm .
Once the shell is running,
the long name for an option may be specified as an argument to the
.Fl /+o
option of the
.Ic set
built-in command
(described later in the section called
.Sx Built-in Commands ) .
Introducing an option with a dash
.Pq Ql -
enables the option,
while using a plus
.Pq Ql +
disables the option.
A
.Dq Li --
or plain
.Ql -
will stop option processing and will force the remaining
words on the command line to be treated as arguments.
The
.Fl /+o
and
.Fl c
options do not have long names.
They take arguments and are described after the single letter options.
.Bl -tag -width indent
.It Fl a Li allexport
Flag variables for export when assignments are made to them.
.It Fl b Li notify
Enable asynchronous notification of background job
completion.
(UNIMPLEMENTED)
.It Fl C Li noclobber
Do not overwrite existing files with
.Ql > .
.It Fl E Li emacs
Enable the built-in
.Xr emacs 1 Pq Pa ports/editors/emacs
command line editor (disables the
.Fl V
option if it has been set;
set automatically when interactive on terminals).
.It Fl e Li 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
.Ic if , elif , while ,
or
.Ic until ;
if the command is the left
hand operand of an
.Dq Li &&
or
.Dq Li ||
operator; or if the command is a pipeline preceded by the
.Ic !\&
keyword.
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.
.Pp
Note that many commands return non-zero values to convey information other
than errors, which can cause unexpected program termination with
.Fl e .
.It Fl f Li noglob
Disable pathname expansion.
.It Fl h Li trackall
A do-nothing option for POSIX compliance.
.It Fl I Li ignoreeof
Ignore
.Dv EOF Ap s
from input when in interactive mode.
.It Fl i Li interactive
Force the shell to behave interactively.
.It Fl l
Force the shell to act as if it has been invoked as a login shell.
.It Fl m Li monitor
Turn on job control (set automatically when interactive).
A new process group is created for each pipeline (called a job).
It is possible to suspend jobs or to have them run in the foreground or
in the background.
In a non-interactive shell,
this option can be set even if no terminal is available
and is useful to place processes in separate process groups.
.It Fl n Li noexec
If not interactive, read commands but do not
execute them.
This is useful for checking the
syntax of shell scripts.
.It Fl P Li physical
Change the default for the
.Ic cd
and
.Ic pwd
commands from
.Fl L
(logical directory layout)
to
.Fl P
(physical directory layout).
.It Fl p Li 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
.Pa /etc/suid_profile
is sourced instead of
.Pa ~/.profile
after
.Pa /etc/profile
is sourced, and the contents of the
.Ev ENV
variable are ignored.
.It Fl s Li 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
.Ic set
command).
.It Fl T Li 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:
.Bd -literal -offset indent
sh -T -c "trap 'exit 1' 2 ; some-blocking-program"
.Ed
.It Fl u Li nounset
Write a message to standard error when attempting
to expand a variable, a positional parameter or
the special parameter
.Va \&!
that is not set, and if the
shell is not interactive, exit immediately.
.It Fl V Li vi
Enable the built-in
.Xr vi 1
command line editor (disables
.Fl E
if it has been set).
.It Fl v Li verbose
The shell writes its input to standard error
as it is read.
Useful for debugging.
.It Fl x Li xtrace
Write each command
(preceded by the value of the
.Va PS4
variable subjected to parameter expansion and arithmetic expansion)
to standard error before it is executed.
Useful for debugging.
.It Li nolog
Another do-nothing option for POSIX compliance.
It only has a long name.
.It Li pipefail
Change the exit status of a pipeline to the last non-zero exit status of
any command in the pipeline, if any.
Since an exit due to
.Dv SIGPIPE
counts as a non-zero exit status,
this option may cause non-zero exit status for successful pipelines
if a command such as
.Xr head 1
in the pipeline terminates with status 0 without reading its
input completely.
This option only has a long name.
.It Li verify
Set
.Dv O_VERIFY
when sourcing files or loading profiles.
.\" See also
.\" .Xr mac_veriexec 4 . TODO Does not exist; write it.
.El
.Pp
The
.Fl c
option causes the commands to be read from the
.Ar 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.
.Pp
The
.Fl /+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
.Nm
both enable the built-in
.Xr emacs 1 Pq Pa ports/editors/emacs
command line editor:
.Bd -literal -offset indent
set -E
set -o emacs
.Ed
.Pp
If used without an argument, the
.Fl o
option displays the current option settings in a human-readable format.
If
.Cm +o
is used without an argument, the current option settings are output
in a format suitable for re-input into the shell.
.Ss 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
.Dq 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:
.Bl -tag -width indent
.It Control operators:
.Bl -column "XXX" "XXX" "XXX" "XXX" "XXX" -offset center -compact
.It Li & Ta Li && Ta Li \&( Ta Li \&) Ta Li \en
.It Li ;; Ta Li ;& Ta Li \&; Ta Li \&| Ta Li ||
.El
.It Redirection operators:
.Bl -column "XXX" "XXX" "XXX" "XXX" "XXX" -offset center -compact
.It Li < Ta Li > Ta Li << Ta Li >> Ta Li <>
.It Li <& Ta Li >& Ta Li <<- Ta Li >| Ta \&
.El
.El
.Pp
The character
.Ql #
introduces a comment if used at the beginning of a word.
The word starting with
.Ql #
and the rest of the line are ignored.
.Pp
ASCII
.Dv NUL
characters (character code 0) are not allowed in shell input.
.Ss 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.
.Pp
There are four types of quoting: matched single quotes,
dollar-single quotes,
matched double quotes, and backslash.
.Bl -tag -width indent
.It 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).
.It Dollar-Single Quotes
Enclosing characters between
.Li $'
and
.Li '
preserves the literal meaning of all characters
except backslashes and single quotes.
A backslash introduces a C-style escape sequence:
.Bl -tag -width xUnnnnnnnn
.It \ea
Alert (ring the terminal bell)
.It \eb
Backspace
.It \ec Ns Ar c
The control character denoted by
.Li ^ Ns Ar c
in
.Xr stty 1 .
If
.Ar c
is a backslash, it must be doubled.
.It \ee
The ESC character (ASCII 0x1b)
.It \ef
Formfeed
.It \en
Newline
.It \er
Carriage return
.It \et
Horizontal tab
.It \ev
Vertical tab
.It \e\e
Literal backslash
.It \e\&'
Literal single-quote
.It \e\&"
Literal double-quote
.It \e Ns Ar nnn
The byte whose octal value is
.Ar nnn
(one to three digits)
.It \ex Ns Ar nn
The byte whose hexadecimal value is
.Ar nn
(one or more digits only the last two of which are used)
.It \eu Ns Ar nnnn
The Unicode code point
.Ar nnnn
(four hexadecimal digits)
.It \eU Ns Ar nnnnnnnn
The Unicode code point
.Ar nnnnnnnn
(eight hexadecimal digits)
.El
.Pp
The sequences for Unicode code points are currently only useful with
UTF-8 locales.
They reject code point 0 and UTF-16 surrogates.
.Pp
If an escape sequence would produce a byte with value 0,
that byte and the rest of the string until the matching single-quote
are ignored.
.Pp
Any other string starting with a backslash is an error.
.It Double Quotes
Enclosing characters within double quotes preserves the literal
meaning of all characters except dollar sign
.Pq Ql $ ,
backquote
.Pq Ql ` ,
and backslash
.Pq Ql \e .
The backslash inside double quotes is historically weird.
It remains literal unless it precedes the following characters,
which it serves to quote:
.Pp
.Bl -column "XXX" "XXX" "XXX" "XXX" "XXX" -offset center -compact
.It Li $ Ta Li ` Ta Li \&" Ta Li \e Ta Li \en
.El
.It Backslash
A backslash preserves the literal meaning of the following
character, with the exception of the newline character
.Pq Ql \en .
A backslash preceding a newline is treated as a line continuation.
.El
.Ss Keywords
Keywords or 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 keywords:
.Bl -column "doneXX" "elifXX" "elseXX" "untilXX" "whileX" -offset center
.It Li \&! Ta { Ta } Ta Ic case Ta Ic do
.It Ic done Ta Ic elif Ta Ic else Ta Ic esac Ta Ic fi
.It Ic for Ta Ic if Ta Ic then Ta Ic until Ta Ic while
.El
.Ss Aliases
An alias is a name and corresponding value set using the
.Ic alias
built-in command.
Wherever the command word of a simple command may occur,
and after checking for keywords if a keyword may occur, 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
.Dq Li lf
with the value
.Dq Li "ls -F" ,
then the input
.Pp
.Dl "lf foobar"
.Pp
would become
.Pp
.Dl "ls -F foobar"
.Pp
Aliases are also recognized after an alias
whose value ends with a space or tab.
For example, if there is also an alias called
.Dq Li nohup
with the value
.Dq Li "nohup " ,
then the input
.Pp
.Dl "nohup lf foobar"
.Pp
would become
.Pp
.Dl "nohup ls -F foobar"
.Pp
Aliases provide a convenient way for naive users to
create shorthands for commands without having to learn how
to create functions with arguments.
Using aliases in scripts is discouraged
because the command that defines them must be executed
before the code that uses them is parsed.
This is fragile and not portable.
.Pp
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.
.Ss 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 keyword, then the shell has recognized a
simple command.
Otherwise, a complex command or some
other special construct may have been recognized.
.Ss Simple Commands
If a simple command has been recognized, the shell performs
the following actions:
.Bl -enum
.It
Leading words of the form
.Dq Li name=value
are stripped off and assigned to the environment of
the simple command
(they do not affect expansions).
Redirection operators and
their arguments (as described below) are stripped
off and saved for processing.
.It
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
.Dq Li name=value
variable assignments recognized in 1) affect the
current shell.
.It
Redirections are performed as described in
the next section.
.El
.Ss 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:
.Pp
.D1 Oo Ar n Oc Ar redir-op file
.Pp
The
.Ar 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.
.Bl -tag -width "1234567890XX" -offset indent
.It Oo Ar n Oc Ns Li > Ar file
redirect stdout (or file descriptor
.Ar n )
to
.Ar file
.It Oo Ar n Oc Ns Li >| Ar file
same as above, but override the
.Fl C
option
.It Oo Ar n Oc Ns Li >> Ar file
append stdout (or file descriptor
.Ar n )
to
.Ar file
.It Oo Ar n Oc Ns Li < Ar file
redirect stdin (or file descriptor
.Ar n )
from
.Ar file
.It Oo Ar n Oc Ns Li <> Ar file
redirect stdin (or file descriptor
.Ar n )
to and from
.Ar file
.It Oo Ar n1 Oc Ns Li <& Ns Ar n2
duplicate stdin (or file descriptor
.Ar n1 )
from file descriptor
.Ar n2
.It Oo Ar n Oc Ns Li <&-
close stdin (or file descriptor
.Ar n )
.It Oo Ar n1 Oc Ns Li >& Ns Ar n2
duplicate stdout (or file descriptor
.Ar n1 )
to file descriptor
.Ar n2
.It Oo Ar n Oc Ns Li >&-
close stdout (or file descriptor
.Ar n )
.El
.Pp
The following redirection is often called a
.Dq here-document .
.Bd -unfilled -offset indent
.Oo Ar n Oc Ns Li << Ar delimiter
.Ar here-doc-text
.Ar ...
.Ar delimiter
.Ed
.Pp
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
.Ar n
if it is specified.
If the
.Ar delimiter
as specified on the initial line is quoted, then the
.Ar 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
.Dq Li <<-
instead of
.Dq Li << ,
then leading tabs
in the
.Ar here-doc-text
are stripped.
.Ss 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.
.Pp
When a shell function is executed, all of the shell positional
parameters (except
.Li $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.
.Pp
Shell built-in commands are executed internally to the shell, without
spawning a new process.
There are two kinds of built-in commands: regular and special.
Assignments before special builtins persist after they finish
executing and assignment errors, redirection errors and certain
operand errors cause a script to be aborted.
Special builtins cannot be overridden with a function.
Both regular and special builtins can affect the shell in ways
normal programs cannot.
.Pp
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
.Dq "magic number"
whose ASCII representation is
.Dq Li #! ,
resulting in an
.Er ENOEXEC
return value from
.Xr execve 2 )
but appears to be a text file,
the shell will run a new instance of
.Nm
to interpret it.
.Pp
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
.Dq "shell procedure" .
.Ss 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:
.Bl -enum
.It
Command names containing a slash are simply executed without
performing any searches.
.It
The shell searches each entry in the
.Va PATH
variable
in turn for the command.
The value of the
.Va 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.
.El
.Ss 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.
.Pp
If a command is terminated by a signal, its exit status is greater than 128.
The signal name can be found by passing the exit status to
.Li kill -l .
.Pp
If there is no command word,
the exit status is the exit status of the last command substitution executed,
or zero if the command does not contain any command substitutions.
.Ss Complex Commands
Complex commands are combinations of simple commands
with control operators or keywords, together creating a larger complex
command.
More generally, a command is one of the following:
.Bl -item -offset indent
.It
simple command
.It
pipeline
.It
list or compound-list
.It
compound command
.It
function definition
.El
.Pp
Unless otherwise stated, the exit status of a command is
that of the last simple command executed by the command,
or zero if no simple command was executed.
.Ss Pipelines
A pipeline is a sequence of one or more commands separated
by the control operator
.Ql \&| .
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.
.Pp
The format for a pipeline is:
.Pp
.D1 Oo Li \&! Oc Ar command1 Op Li \&| Ar command2 ...
.Pp
The standard output of
.Ar command1
is connected to the standard input of
.Ar 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.
.Pp
Note that unlike some other shells,
.Nm
executes each process in a pipeline with more than one command
in a subshell environment and as a child of the
.Nm
process.
.Pp
If the pipeline is not in the background (discussed later),
the shell waits for all commands to complete.
.Pp
If the keyword
.Ic !\&
does not precede the pipeline, the
exit status is the exit status of the last command specified
in the pipeline if the
.Cm pipefail
option is not set or all commands returned zero,
or the last non-zero exit status of any command in the pipeline otherwise.
Otherwise, the exit status is the logical
NOT of that exit status.
That is, if
that status is zero, the exit status is 1; if
that status is greater than zero, the exit status
is zero.
.Pp
Because pipeline assignment of standard input or standard
output or both takes place before redirection, it can be
modified by redirection.
For example:
.Pp
.Dl "command1 2>&1 | command2"
.Pp
sends both the standard output and standard error of
.Ar command1
to the standard input of
.Ar command2 .
.Pp
A
.Ql \&;
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
.Ql &
causes asynchronous execution of the preceding AND-OR-list.
.Ss Background Commands (&)
If a command is terminated by the control operator ampersand
.Pq Ql & ,
the shell executes the command in a subshell environment (see
.Sx Grouping Commands Together
below) and asynchronously;
the shell does not wait for the command to finish
before executing the next command.
.Pp
The format for running a command in background is:
.Pp
.D1 Ar command1 Li & Op Ar command2 Li & Ar ...
.Pp
If the shell is not interactive, the standard input of an
asynchronous command is set to
.Pa /dev/null .
.Pp
The exit status is zero.
.Ss 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.
.Ss Short-Circuit List Operators
.Dq Li &&
and
.Dq Li ||
are AND-OR list operators.
.Dq Li &&
executes the first command, and then executes the second command
if the exit status of the first command is zero.
.Dq Li ||
is similar, but executes the second command if the exit
status of the first command is nonzero.
.Dq Li &&
and
.Dq Li ||
both have the same priority.
.Ss Flow-Control Constructs (if, while, for, case)
The syntax of the
.Ic if
command is:
.Bd -unfilled -offset indent -compact
.Ic if Ar list
.Ic then Ar list
.Oo Ic elif Ar list
.Ic then Ar list Oc Ar ...
.Op Ic else Ar list
.Ic fi
.Ed
.Pp
The exit status is that of selected
.Ic then
or
.Ic else
list,
or zero if no list was selected.
.Pp
The syntax of the
.Ic while
command is:
.Bd -unfilled -offset indent -compact
.Ic while Ar list
.Ic do Ar list
.Ic done
.Ed
.Pp
The two lists are executed repeatedly while the exit status of the
first list is zero.
The
.Ic until
command is similar, but has the word
.Ic until
in place of
.Ic while ,
which causes it to
repeat until the exit status of the first list is zero.
.Pp
The exit status is that of the last execution of the second list,
or zero if it was never executed.
.Pp
The syntax of the
.Ic for
command is:
.Bd -unfilled -offset indent -compact
.Ic for Ar variable Op Ic in Ar word ...
.Ic do Ar list
.Ic done
.Ed
.Pp
If
.Ic in
and the following words are omitted,
.Ic in Li \&"$@\&"
is used instead.
The words are expanded, and then the list is executed
repeatedly with the variable set to each word in turn.
The
.Ic do
and
.Ic done
commands may be replaced with
.Ql {
and
.Ql } .
.Pp
The syntax of the
.Ic break
and
.Ic continue
commands is:
.D1 Ic break Op Ar num
.D1 Ic continue Op Ar num
.Pp
The
.Ic break
command terminates the
.Ar num
innermost
.Ic for
or
.Ic while
loops.
The
.Ic continue
command continues with the next iteration of the innermost loop.
These are implemented as special built-in commands.
.Pp
The syntax of the
.Ic case
command is:
.Bd -unfilled -offset indent -compact
.Ic case Ar word Ic in
.Ar pattern ) Ar list Li ;;
.Ar ...
.Ic esac
.Ed
.Pp
The pattern can actually be one or more patterns
(see
.Sx Shell Patterns
described later),
separated by
.Ql \&|
characters.
Tilde expansion, parameter expansion, command substitution,
arithmetic expansion and quote removal are applied to the word.
Then, each pattern is expanded in turn using tilde expansion,
parameter expansion, command substitution and arithmetic expansion and
the expanded form of the word is checked against it.
If a match is found, the corresponding list is executed.
If the selected list is terminated by the control operator
.Ql ;&
instead of
.Ql ;; ,
execution continues with the next list,
continuing until a list terminated with
.Ql ;;
or the end of the
.Ic case
command.
.Ss Grouping Commands Together
Commands may be grouped by writing either
.Sm off
.Bd -literal -offset indent
.Po Ar list Pc
.Ed
.Sm on
.Pp
or
.Bd -literal -offset indent
.No { Ar list ; }
.Ed
.Pp
The first form executes the commands in a subshell environment.
A subshell environment has its own copy of:
.Bl -enum
.It
The current working directory as set by
.Ic cd .
.It
The file creation mask as set by
.Ic umask .
.It
Resource limits as set by
.Ic ulimit .
.It
References to open files.
.It
Traps as set by
.Ic trap .
.It
Known jobs.
.It
Positional parameters and variables.
.It
Shell options.
.It
Shell functions.
.It
Shell aliases.
.El
.Pp
These are copied from the parent shell environment,
except that trapped (but not ignored) signals are reset to the default action
and known jobs are cleared.
Any changes do not affect the parent shell environment.
.Pp
A subshell environment may be implemented as a child process or differently.
If job control is enabled in an interactive shell,
commands grouped in parentheses can be suspended and continued as a unit.
.Pp
For compatibility with other shells,
two open parentheses in sequence should be separated by whitespace.
.Pp
The second form never forks 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:
.Bd -literal -offset indent
{ echo -n "hello"; echo " world"; } > greeting
.Ed
.Ss Functions
The syntax of a function definition is
.Pp
.D1 Ar name Li \&( \&) Ar command
.Pp
A function definition is an executable statement; when
executed it installs a function named
.Ar name
and returns an
exit status of zero.
The
.Ar command
is normally a list
enclosed between
.Ql {
and
.Ql } .
.Pp
Variables may be declared to be local to a function by
using the
.Ic local
command.
This should appear as the first statement of a function,
and the syntax is:
.Pp
.D1 Ic local Oo Ar variable ... Oc Op Fl
.Pp
The
.Ic local
command is implemented as a built-in command.
The exit status is zero
unless the command is not in a function or a variable name is invalid.
.Pp
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
.Va x
is made local to function
.Em f ,
which then calls function
.Em g ,
references to the variable
.Va x
made inside
.Em g
will refer to the variable
.Va x
declared inside
.Em f ,
not to the global variable named
.Va x .
.Pp
The only special parameter that can be made local is
.Ql - .
Making
.Ql -
local causes any shell options
(including those that only have long names)
that are
changed via the
.Ic set
command inside the function to be
restored to their original values when the function
returns.
.Pp
The syntax of the
.Ic return
command is
.Pp
.D1 Ic return Op Ar exitstatus
.Pp
It terminates the current executional scope, returning from the closest
nested function or sourced script;
if no function or sourced script is being executed,
it exits the shell instance.
The
.Ic return
command is implemented as a special built-in command.
.Ss Variables and Parameters
The shell maintains a set of parameters.
A parameter
denoted by a name
(consisting solely
of alphabetics, numerics, and underscores,
and starting with an alphabetic or an underscore)
is called a variable.
When starting up,
the shell turns all environment variables with valid names into shell
variables.
New variables can be set using the form
.Pp
.D1 Ar name Ns = Ns Ar value
.Pp
A parameter can also be denoted by a number
or a special character as explained below.
.Pp
Assignments are expanded differently from other words:
tilde expansion is also performed after the equals sign and after any colon
and usernames are also terminated by colons,
and field splitting and pathname expansion are not performed.
.Pp
This special expansion applies not only to assignments that form a simple
command by themselves or precede a command word,
but also to words passed to the
.Ic export ,
.Ic local
or
.Ic readonly
built-in commands that have this form.
For this, the builtin's name must be literal
(not the result of an expansion)
and may optionally be preceded by one or more literal instances of
.Ic command
without options.
.Ss 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
.Ic set
built-in command can also be used to set or reset them.
.Ss Special Parameters
Special parameters are parameters denoted by a single special character
or the digit zero.
They 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.
.Bl -hang
.It Li $*
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
.Va IFS
variable,
or by a space if
.Va IFS
is unset.
.It Li $@
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
.Li @
generates zero arguments, even when
.Li @
is double-quoted.
What this basically means, for example, is
if
.Li $1
is
.Dq Li abc
and
.Li $2
is
.Dq Li "def ghi" ,
then
.Li \&"$@\&"
expands to
the two arguments:
.Bd -literal -offset indent
"abc"   "def ghi"
.Ed
.It Li $#
Expands to the number of positional parameters.
.It Li $?
Expands to the exit status of the most recent pipeline.
.It Li $-
(hyphen) Expands to the current option flags (the single-letter
option names concatenated into a string) as specified on
invocation, by the
.Ic set
built-in command, or implicitly
by the shell.
.It Li $$
Expands to the process ID of the invoked shell.
A subshell
retains the same value of
.Va $
as its parent.
.It Li $!
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.
If this parameter is referenced, the shell will remember
the process ID and its exit status until the
.Ic wait
built-in command reports completion of the process.
.It Li $0
(zero) Expands to the name of the shell script if passed on the command line,
the
.Ar name
operand if given (with
.Fl c )
or otherwise argument 0 passed to the shell.
.El
.Ss Special Variables
The following variables are set by the shell or
have special meaning to it:
.Bl -tag -width ".Va HISTSIZE"
.It Va CDPATH
The search path used with the
.Ic cd
built-in.
.It Va EDITOR
The fallback editor used with the
.Ic fc
built-in.
If not set, the default editor is
.Xr ed 1 .
.It Va FCEDIT
The default editor used with the
.Ic fc
built-in.
.It Va HISTFILE
File used for persistent history storage.
If unset
.Pa ~/.sh_history
will be used.
If set but empty or
.Va HISTSIZE
is set to 0
the shell will not load and save the history.
.It Va HISTSIZE
The number of previous commands that are accessible.
.It Va HOME
The user's home directory,
used in tilde expansion and as a default directory for the
.Ic cd
built-in.
.It Va IFS
Input Field Separators.
This is initialized at startup to
.Aq space ,
.Aq tab ,
and
.Aq newline
in that order.
This value also applies if
.Va IFS
is unset, but not if it is set to the empty string.
See the
.Sx White Space Splitting
section for more details.
.It Va LINENO
The current line number in the script or function.
.It Va MAIL
The name of a mail file, that will be checked for the arrival of new
mail.
Overridden by
.Va MAILPATH .
.It Va MAILPATH
A colon
.Pq Ql \&:
separated list of file names, for the shell to check for incoming
mail.
This variable overrides the
.Va MAIL
setting.
There is a maximum of 10 mailboxes that can be monitored at once.
.It Va OPTIND
The index of the next argument to be processed by
.Ic getopts .
This is initialized to 1 at startup.
.It Va PATH
The default search path for executables.
See the
.Sx Path Search
section for details.
.It Va PPID
The parent process ID of the invoked shell.
This is set at startup
unless this variable is in the environment.
A later change of parent process ID is not reflected.
A subshell retains the same value of
.Va PPID .
.It Va PS1
The primary prompt string, which defaults to
.Dq Li "$ " ,
unless you are the superuser, in which case it defaults to
.Dq Li "# " .
.Va PS1
may include any of the following formatting sequences,
which are replaced by the given information:
.Bl -tag -width indent
.It Li \eD{format}
The current time in
.Xr strftime 3
.Ar format .
The braces are required.
Empty
.Ar format
is equivalent to
\&%X,
national representation of the time.
.It Li \eH
This system's fully-qualified hostname (FQDN).
.It Li \eh
This system's hostname.
.It Li \eu
User name.
.It Li \eW
The final component of the current working directory.
.It Li \ew
The entire path of the current working directory.
.It Li \e$
Superuser status.
.Dq Li "$"
for normal users and
.Dq Li "#"
for superusers.
.It Li \e\e
A literal backslash.
.It Li \e[
Start of a sequence of non-printing characters (used, for example,
to embed ANSI CSI sequences into the prompt).
.It Li \e]
End of a sequence of non-printing characters.
.El
.Pp
The following special and non-printing characters are supported
within the sequence of non-printing characters:
.Bl -tag -width indent
.It Li \ea
Emits ASCII BEL (0x07, 007) character.
.It Li \ee
Emits ASCII ESC (0x1b, 033) character.
.It Li \er
Emits ASCII CR (0x0d, 015) character.
.It Li \en
Emits CRLF sequence.
.El
.It Va PS2
The secondary prompt string, which defaults to
.Dq Li "> " .
.Va PS2
may include any of the formatting sequences from
.Va PS1 .
.It Va PS4
The prefix for the trace output (if
.Fl x
is active).
The default is
.Dq Li "+ " .
.El
.Ss Word Expansions
This clause describes the various expansions that are
performed on words.
Not all expansions are performed on
every word, as explained later.
.Pp
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
.Va @
within double-quotes,
as was described above.
.Pp
The order of word expansion is:
.Bl -enum
.It
Tilde Expansion, Parameter Expansion, Command Substitution,
Arithmetic Expansion (these all occur at the same time).
.It
Field Splitting is performed on fields generated by step (1)
unless the
.Va IFS
variable is null.
.It
Pathname Expansion (unless the
.Fl f
option is in effect).
.It
Quote Removal.
.El
.Pp
The
.Ql $
character is used to introduce parameter expansion, command
substitution, or arithmetic expansion.
.Ss Tilde Expansion (substituting a user's home directory)
A word beginning with an unquoted tilde character
.Pq Ql ~
is
subjected to tilde expansion.
All the characters up to a slash
.Pq Ql /
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
.Pa ~/foobar ) ,
the tilde is replaced with the value of the
.Va HOME
variable (the current user's home directory).
.Ss Parameter Expansion
The format for parameter expansion is as follows:
.Pp
.D1 Li ${ Ns Ar expression Ns Li }
.Pp
where
.Ar expression
consists of all characters until the matching
.Ql } .
Any
.Ql }
escaped by a backslash or within a single-quoted or double-quoted
string, and characters in
embedded arithmetic expansions, command substitutions, and variable
expansions, are not examined in determining the matching
.Ql } .
If the variants with
.Ql + ,
.Ql - ,
.Ql =
or
.Ql ?\&
occur within a double-quoted string,
as an extension there may be unquoted parts
(via double-quotes inside the expansion);
.Ql }
within such parts are also not examined in determining the matching
.Ql } .
.Pp
The simplest form for parameter expansion is:
.Pp
.D1 Li ${ Ns Ar parameter Ns Li }
.Pp
The value, if any, of
.Ar parameter
is substituted.
.Pp
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:
.Bl -enum
.It
Field splitting is not performed on the results of the
expansion, with the exception of the special parameter
.Va @ .
.It
Pathname expansion is not performed on the results of the
expansion.
.El
.Pp
In addition, a parameter expansion can be modified by using one of the
following formats.
.Bl -tag -width indent
.It Li ${ Ns Ar parameter Ns Li :- Ns Ar word Ns Li }
Use Default Values.
If
.Ar parameter
is unset or null, the expansion of
.Ar word
is substituted; otherwise, the value of
.Ar parameter
is substituted.
.It Li ${ Ns Ar parameter Ns Li := Ns Ar word Ns Li }
Assign Default Values.
If
.Ar parameter
is unset or null, the expansion of
.Ar word
is assigned to
.Ar parameter .
In all cases, the
final value of
.Ar parameter
is substituted.
Quoting inside
.Ar word
does not prevent field splitting or pathname expansion.
Only variables, not positional
parameters or special parameters, can be
assigned in this way.
.It Li ${ Ns Ar parameter Ns Li :? Ns Oo Ar word Oc Ns Li }
Indicate Error if Null or Unset.
If
.Ar parameter
is unset or null, the expansion of
.Ar word
(or a message indicating it is unset if
.Ar word
is omitted) is written to standard
error and the shell exits with a nonzero
exit status.
Otherwise, the value of
.Ar parameter
is substituted.
An
interactive shell need not exit.
.It Li ${ Ns Ar parameter Ns Li :+ Ns Ar word Ns Li }
Use Alternate Value.
If
.Ar parameter
is unset or null, null is substituted;
otherwise, the expansion of
.Ar word
is substituted.
.El
.Pp
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.
.Pp
The
.Ar word
inherits the type of quoting
(unquoted, double-quoted or here-document)
from the surroundings,
with the exception that a backslash that quotes a closing brace is removed
during quote removal.
.Bl -tag -width indent
.It Li ${# Ns Ar parameter Ns Li }
String Length.
The length in characters of
the value of
.Ar parameter .
.El
.Pp
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
.Va *
or
.Va @ ,
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.
.Bl -tag -width indent
.It Li ${ Ns Ar parameter Ns Li % Ns Ar word Ns Li }
Remove Smallest Suffix Pattern.
The
.Ar word
is expanded to produce a pattern.
The
parameter expansion then results in
.Ar parameter ,
with the smallest portion of the
suffix matched by the pattern deleted.
.It Li ${ Ns Ar parameter Ns Li %% Ns Ar word Ns Li }
Remove Largest Suffix Pattern.
The
.Ar word
is expanded to produce a pattern.
The
parameter expansion then results in
.Ar parameter ,
with the largest portion of the
suffix matched by the pattern deleted.
.It Li ${ Ns Ar parameter Ns Li # Ns Ar word Ns Li }
Remove Smallest Prefix Pattern.
The
.Ar word
is expanded to produce a pattern.
The
parameter expansion then results in
.Ar parameter ,
with the smallest portion of the
prefix matched by the pattern deleted.
.It Li ${ Ns Ar parameter Ns Li ## Ns Ar word Ns Li }
Remove Largest Prefix Pattern.
The
.Ar word
is expanded to produce a pattern.
The
parameter expansion then results in
.Ar parameter ,
with the largest portion of the
prefix matched by the pattern deleted.
.El
.Ss 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:
.Pp
.D1 Li $( Ns Ar command Ns Li )\&
.Pp
or the backquoted version:
.Pp
.D1 Li ` Ns Ar command Ns Li `
.Pp
The shell expands the command substitution by executing command
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
.Va IFS
and the quoting that is in effect.
The command is executed in a subshell environment,
except that the built-in commands
.Ic jobid ,
.Ic jobs ,
and
.Ic trap
return information about the parent shell environment
and
.Ic times
returns information about the same process
if they are the only command in a command substitution.
.Pp
If a command substitution of the
.Li $(
form begins with a subshell,
the
.Li $(
and
.Li (\&
must be separated by whitespace
to avoid ambiguity with arithmetic expansion.
.Ss Arithmetic Expansion
Arithmetic expansion provides a mechanism for evaluating an arithmetic
expression and substituting its value.
The format for arithmetic expansion is as follows:
.Pp
.D1 Li $(( Ns Ar expression Ns Li ))
.Pp
The
.Ar 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
.Ar expression
for parameter expansion,
command substitution,
arithmetic expansion
and quote removal.
.Pp
The allowed expressions are a subset of C expressions,
summarized below.
.Bl -tag -width "Variables" -offset indent
.It Values
All values are of type
.Ft intmax_t .
.It Constants
Decimal, octal (starting with
.Li 0 )
and hexadecimal (starting with
.Li 0x )
integer constants.
.It Variables
Shell variables can be read and written
and contain integer constants.
.It Unary operators
.Li "! ~ + -"
.It Binary operators
.Li "* / % + - << >> < <= > >= == != & ^ | && ||"\&
.It Assignment operators
.Li "= += -= *= /= %= <<= >>= &= ^= |="
.It Conditional operator
.Li "? :"\&
.El
.Pp
The result of the expression is substituted in decimal.
.Ss White Space Splitting (Field Splitting)
In certain contexts,
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.
.Pp
Characters in
.Va IFS
that are whitespace
.Po
.Aq space ,
.Aq tab ,
and
.Aq newline
.Pc
are treated differently from other characters in
.Va IFS .
.Pp
Whitespace in
.Va IFS
at the beginning or end of a word is discarded.
.Pp
Subsequently, a field is delimited by either
.Bl -enum
.It
a non-whitespace character in
.Va IFS
with any whitespace in
.Va IFS
surrounding it, or
.It
one or more whitespace characters in
.Va IFS .
.El
.Pp
If a word ends with a non-whitespace character in
.Va IFS ,
there is no empty field after this character.
.Pp
If no field is delimited, the word is discarded.
In particular, if a word consists solely of an unquoted substitution
and the result of the substitution is null,
it is removed by field splitting even if
.Va IFS
is null.
.Ss Pathname Expansion (File Name Generation)
Unless the
.Fl 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
Pathname Expansion,
the four varieties of parameter expansion for substring processing and the
.Ic case
command.
.Ss Shell Patterns
A pattern consists of normal characters, which match themselves,
and meta-characters.
The meta-characters are
.Ql * ,
.Ql \&? ,
and
.Ql \&[ .
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.
.Pp
An asterisk
.Pq Ql *
matches any string of characters.
A question mark
.Pq Ql \&?
matches any single character.
A left bracket
.Pq Ql \&[
introduces a character class.
The end of the character class is indicated by a
.Ql \&] ;
if the
.Ql \&]
is missing then the
.Ql \&[
matches a
.Ql \&[
rather than introducing a character class.
A character class matches any of the characters between the square brackets.
A locale-dependent range of characters may be specified using a minus sign.
A named class of characters (see
.Xr wctype 3 )
may be specified by surrounding the name with
.Ql \&[:\&
and
.Ql :\&] .
For example,
.Ql \&[\&[:alpha:\&]\&]
is a shell pattern that matches a single letter.
The character class may be complemented by making an exclamation point
.Pq Ql !\&
the first character of the character class.
A caret
.Pq Ql ^
has the same effect but is non-standard.
.Pp
To include a
.Ql \&]
in a character class, make it the first character listed
(after the
.Ql \&!
or
.Ql ^ ,
if any).
To include a
.Ql - ,
make it the first or last character listed.
.Ss Built-in Commands
This section lists the built-in commands.
.Bl -tag -width indent
.It Ic \&: Op Ar arg Ar ...
A null command that returns a 0 (true) exit value.
Any arguments are discarded.
.It Ic \&. Ar file
The commands in the specified file are read and executed by the shell.
The
.Ic return
command may be used to return to the
.Ic \&.
command's caller.
If
.Ar file
contains any
.Ql /
characters, it is used as is.
Otherwise, the shell searches the
.Va PATH
for the file.
If it is not found in the
.Va PATH ,
it is sought in the current working directory.
.It Ic \&[
A built-in equivalent of
.Xr test 1 .
.It Ic alias Oo Ar name Ns Oo = Ns Ar string Oc Ar ... Oc
If
.Ar name Ns = Ns Ar string
is specified, the shell defines the alias
.Ar name
with value
.Ar string .
If just
.Ar name
is specified, the value of the alias
.Ar name
is printed.
With no arguments, the
.Ic alias
built-in command prints the names and values of all defined aliases
(see
.Ic 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.
.It Ic bg Op Ar job ...
Continue the specified jobs
(or the current job if no jobs are given)
in the background.
.It Ic bind Oo Fl aeklrsv Oc Oo Ar key Oo Ar command Oc Oc
List or alter key bindings for the line editor.
This command is documented in
.Xr editrc 5 .
.It Ic break Op Ar num
See the
.Sx Flow-Control Constructs
subsection.
.It Ic builtin Ar cmd Op Ar arg ...
Execute the specified built-in command,
.Ar cmd .
This is useful when the user wishes to override a shell function
with the same name as a built-in command.
.It Ic cd Oo Fl L | P Oc Oo Fl e Oc Op Ar directory
.It Ic cd Fl
Switch to the specified
.Ar directory ,
to the directory specified in the
.Va HOME
environment variable if no
.Ar directory
is specified or
to the directory specified in the
.Va OLDPWD
environment variable if
.Ar directory
is
.Fl .
If
.Ar directory
does not begin with
.Pa / , \&. ,
or
.Pa .. ,
then the directories listed in the
.Va CDPATH
variable will be
searched for the specified
.Ar directory .
If
.Va CDPATH
is unset, the current directory is searched.
The format of
.Va CDPATH
is the same as that of
.Va PATH .
In an interactive shell,
the
.Ic cd
command will print out the name of the directory
that it actually switched to
if the
.Va CDPATH
mechanism was used or if
.Ar directory
was
.Fl .
.Pp
If the
.Fl P
option is specified,
.Pa ..
is handled physically and symbolic links are resolved before
.Pa ..
components are processed.
If the
.Fl L
option is specified,
.Pa ..
is handled logically.
This is the default.
.Pp
The
.Fl e
option causes
.Ic cd
to return exit status 1 if the full pathname of the new directory
cannot be determined reliably or at all.
Normally this is not considered an error,
although a warning is printed.
.Pp
If changing the directory fails, the exit status is greater than 1.
If the directory is changed, the exit status is 0, or also 1 if
.Fl e
was given.
.It Ic chdir
A synonym for the
.Ic cd
built-in command.
.It Ic command Oo Fl p Oc Op Ar utility Op Ar argument ...
.It Ic command Oo Fl p Oc Fl v Ar utility
.It Ic command Oo Fl p Oc Fl V Ar utility
The first form of invocation executes the specified
.Ar utility ,
ignoring shell functions in the search.
If
.Ar utility
is a special builtin,
it is executed as if it were a regular builtin.
.Pp
If the
.Fl p
option is specified, the command search is performed using a
default value of
.Va PATH
that is guaranteed to find all of the standard utilities.
.Pp
If the
.Fl v
option is specified,
.Ar 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
.Dq Ic alias Ar name Ns = Ns Ar value .
.Pp
The
.Fl V
option is identical to
.Fl v
except for the output.
It prints
.Dq Ar utility Ic is Ar description
where
.Ar description
is either
the path name to
.Ar utility ,
a special shell builtin,
a shell builtin,
a shell function,
a shell keyword
or
an alias for
.Ar value .
.It Ic continue Op Ar num
See the
.Sx Flow-Control Constructs
subsection.
.It Ic echo Oo Fl e | n Oc Op Ar string ...
Print a space-separated list of the arguments to the standard output
and append a newline character.
.Bl -tag -width indent
.It Fl n
Suppress the output of the trailing newline.
.It Fl e
Process C-style backslash escape sequences.
The
.Ic echo
command understands the following character escapes:
.Bl -tag -width indent
.It \ea
Alert (ring the terminal bell)
.It \eb
Backspace
.It \ec
Suppress the trailing newline (this has the side-effect of truncating the
line if it is not the last character)
.It \ee
The ESC character (ASCII 0x1b)
.It \ef
Formfeed
.It \en
Newline
.It \er
Carriage return
.It \et
Horizontal tab
.It \ev
Vertical tab
.It \e\e
Literal backslash
.It \e0nnn
(Zero) The character whose octal value is
.Ar nnn
.El
.Pp
If
.Ar string
is not enclosed in quotes then the backslash itself must be escaped
with a backslash to protect it from the shell.
For example
.Bd -literal -offset indent
$ echo -e "a\evb"
a
 b
$ echo -e a\e\evb
a
 b
$ echo -e "a\e\eb"
a\eb
$ echo -e a\e\e\e\eb
a\eb
.Ed
.El
.Pp
Only one of the
.Fl e
and
.Fl n
options may be specified.
.It Ic eval Ar string ...
Concatenate all the arguments with spaces.
Then re-parse and execute the command.
.It Ic exec Op Ar command Op arg ...
Unless
.Ar 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
.Ic exec
command are marked as permanent,
so that they are not undone when the
.Ic exec
command finishes.
.It Ic exit Op Ar exitstatus
Terminate the shell process.
If
.Ar exitstatus
is given
it is used as the exit status of the shell.
Otherwise, if the shell is executing an
.Cm EXIT
trap, the exit status of the last command before the trap is used;
if the shell is executing a trap for a signal,
the shell exits by resending the signal to itself.
Otherwise, the exit status of the preceding command is used.
The exit status should be an integer between 0 and 255.
.It Ic export Ar name ...
.It Ic export Op Fl 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
.Ic unset
it.
The shell allows the value of a variable to be set
at the same time as it is exported by writing
.Pp
.D1 Ic export Ar name Ns = Ns Ar value
.Pp
With no arguments the
.Ic export
command lists the names
of all exported variables.
If the
.Fl p
option is specified, the exported variables are printed as
.Dq Ic export Ar name Ns = Ns Ar value
lines, suitable for re-input to the shell.
.It Ic false
A null command that returns a non-zero (false) exit value.
.It Ic fc Oo Fl e Ar editor Oc Op Ar first Op Ar last
.It Ic fc Fl l Oo Fl nr Oc Op Ar first Op Ar last
.It Ic fc Fl s Oo Ar old Ns = Ns Ar new Oc Op Ar first
The
.Ic fc
built-in command lists, or edits and re-executes,
commands previously entered to an interactive shell.
.Bl -tag -width indent
.It Fl e Ar editor
Use the editor named by
.Ar editor
to edit the commands.
The
.Ar editor
string is a command name,
subject to search via the
.Va PATH
variable.
The value in the
.Va FCEDIT
variable is used as a default when
.Fl e
is not specified.
If
.Va FCEDIT
is null or unset, the value of the
.Va EDITOR
variable is used.
If
.Va EDITOR
is null or unset,
.Xr ed 1
is used as the editor.
.It Fl l No (ell)
List the commands rather than invoking
an editor on them.
The commands are written in the
sequence indicated by the
.Ar first
and
.Ar last
operands, as affected by
.Fl r ,
with each command preceded by the command number.
.It Fl n
Suppress command numbers when listing with
.Fl l .
.It Fl r
Reverse the order of the commands listed
(with
.Fl l )
or edited
(with neither
.Fl l
nor
.Fl s ) .
.It Fl s
Re-execute the command without invoking an editor.
.It Ar first
.It Ar last
Select the commands to list or edit.
The number of previous commands that can be accessed
are determined by the value of the
.Va HISTSIZE
variable.
The value of
.Ar first
or
.Ar last
or both are one of the following:
.Bl -tag -width indent
.It Oo Cm + Oc Ns Ar num
A positive number representing a command number;
command numbers can be displayed with the
.Fl l
option.
.It Fl Ar num
A negative decimal number representing the
command that was executed
.Ar num
of
commands previously.
For example, \-1 is the immediately previous command.
.It Ar string
A string indicating the most recently entered command
that begins with that string.
If the
.Ar old Ns = Ns Ar new
operand is not also specified with
.Fl s ,
the string form of the first operand cannot contain an embedded equal sign.
.El
.El
.Pp
The following variables affect the execution of
.Ic fc :
.Bl -tag -width ".Va HISTSIZE"
.It Va FCEDIT
Name of the editor to use for history editing.
.It Va HISTSIZE
The number of previous commands that are accessible.
.El
.It Ic fg Op Ar job
Move the specified
.Ar job
or the current job to the foreground.
.It Ic getopts Ar optstring var
Parse command-line options and arguments.
The first argument
.Va optstring
should be a series of letters, each possibly
followed by a colon which indicates that the option takes an argument.
The specified variable
.Va var
is set to the parsed option.
The index of
the next argument is placed into the shell variable
.Va OPTIND .
If an option takes an argument, it is placed into the shell variable
.Va OPTARG .
.Pp
If the found character
is not specified by
.Va optstring
or if it is missing a required argument,
the option is considered invalid and:
.Bl -offset indent
.It
If the first character of
.Va optstring
is not a colon then
.Va OPTARG
is unset,
.Ar var
is set to
.Ql \&?
and a diagnostic message is written to stderr.
.It
If the first character of
.Va optstring
is a colon then
.Va OPTARG
is set to the the option character found,
.Ar var
is set to
.Ql \&:
when a required argument is missing or to
.Ql \&?
when the option was not specified by
.Va optstring ,
and no diagnostic message is written to stderr.
.El
.Pp
.Ic getopts
returns a false value (1) when it encounters the end of the options.
A new set of arguments may be parsed by assigning
.Li OPTIND=1 .
The POSIX
.Ic getopts
command deprecates the older
.Xr getopt 1
command.
.It Ic hash Oo Fl rv Oc Op Ar command ...
The shell maintains a hash table which remembers the locations of commands.
With no arguments whatsoever, the
.Ic hash
command prints out the contents of this table.
.Pp
With arguments, the
.Ic hash
command removes each specified
.Ar command
from the hash table (unless they are functions) and then locates it.
With the
.Fl v
option,
.Ic hash
prints the locations of the commands as it finds them.
The
.Fl r
option causes the
.Ic hash
command to delete all the entries in the hash table except for functions.
.It Ic jobid Op Ar job
Print the process IDs of the processes in the specified
.Ar job .
If the
.Ar job
argument is omitted, use the current job.
.It Ic jobs Oo Fl lps Oc Op Ar job ...
Print information about the specified jobs, or all jobs if no
.Ar job
argument is given.
The information printed includes job ID, status and command name.
.Pp
If the
.Fl l
option is specified, the PID of each job is also printed.
If the
.Fl p
option is specified, only the process IDs for the process group leaders
are printed, one per line.
If the
.Fl s
option is specified, only the PIDs of the job commands are printed, one per
line.
.It Ic kill
A built-in equivalent of
.Xr kill 1
that additionally supports sending signals to jobs.
.It Ic local Oo Ar variable ... Oc Op Fl
See the
.Sx Functions
subsection.
.It Ic printf
A built-in equivalent of
.Xr printf 1 .
.It Ic pwd Op Fl 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
.Xr pwd 1
will continue to print the old name for the directory.
.Pp
If the
.Fl P
option is specified, symbolic links are resolved.
If the
.Fl L
option is specified, the shell's notion of the current directory
is printed (symbolic links are not resolved).
This is the default.
.It Ic read Oo Fl p Ar prompt Oc Oo
.Fl t Ar timeout Oc Oo Fl er Oc Ar variable ...
The
.Ar prompt
is printed if the
.Fl 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
.Va 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.
.Pp
Backslashes are treated specially, unless the
.Fl 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
.Va IFS ,
even if it is.
.Pp
If the
.Fl t
option is specified and the
.Ar timeout
elapses before a complete line of input is supplied,
the
.Ic read
command will return an exit status as if terminated by
.Dv SIGALRM
without assigning any values.
The
.Ar timeout
value may optionally be followed by one of
.Ql s ,
.Ql m
or
.Ql h
to explicitly specify seconds, minutes or hours.
If none is supplied,
.Ql s
is assumed.
.Pp
The
.Fl e
option exists only for backward compatibility with older scripts.
.Pp
The exit status is 0 on success, 1 on end of file,
between 2 and 128 if an error occurs
and greater than 128 if a trapped signal interrupts
.Ic read .
.It Ic readonly Oo Fl p Oc Op Ar name ...
Each specified
.Ar 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:
.Pp
.D1 Ic readonly Ar name Ns = Ns Ar value
.Pp
With no arguments the
.Ic readonly
command lists the names of all read only variables.
If the
.Fl p
option is specified, the read-only variables are printed as
.Dq Ic readonly Ar name Ns = Ns Ar value
lines, suitable for re-input to the shell.
.It Ic return Op Ar exitstatus
See the
.Sx Functions
subsection.
.It Ic set Oo Fl /+abCEefIimnpTuVvx Oc Oo Fl /+o Ar longname
.Oc Op Fl - Ar arg ...
The
.Ic set
command performs three different functions:
.Bl -item
.It
With no arguments, it lists the values of all shell variables.
.It
If options are given,
either in short form or using the long
.Dq Fl /+o Ar longname
form,
it sets or clears the specified options as described in the section called
.Sx Argument List Processing .
.It
If the
.Dq Fl -
option is specified,
.Ic set
will replace the shell's positional parameters with the subsequent
arguments.
If no arguments follow the
.Dq Fl -
option,
all the positional parameters will be cleared,
which is equivalent to executing the command
.Dq Li "shift $#" .
The
.Dq Fl -
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
.Pq Ql -
or a plus
.Pq Ql + ,
which the
.Ic set
command will interpret as a request to enable or disable options.
.El
.It Ic setvar Ar variable value
Assigns the specified
.Ar value
to the specified
.Ar variable .
The
.Ic 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
.Dq Ar variable Ns = Ns Ar value
rather than using
.Ic setvar .
.It Ic shift Op Ar n
Shift the positional parameters
.Ar n
times, or once if
.Ar n
is not specified.
A shift sets the value of
.Li $1
to the value of
.Li $2 ,
the value of
.Li $2
to the value of
.Li $3 ,
and so on,
decreasing the value of
.Li $#
by one.
For portability, shifting if there are zero positional parameters
should be avoided, since the shell may abort.
.It Ic test
A built-in equivalent of
.Xr test 1 .
.It Ic times
Print the amount of time spent executing the shell process and its children.
The first output line shows the user and system times for the shell process
itself, the second one contains the user and system times for the
children.
.It Ic trap Oo Ar action Oc Ar signal ...
.It Ic trap Fl l
Cause the shell to parse and execute
.Ar action
when any specified
.Ar signal
is received.
The signals are specified by name or number.
In addition, the pseudo-signal
.Cm EXIT
may be used to specify an
.Ar action
that is performed when the shell terminates.
The
.Ar action
may be an empty string or a dash
.Pq Ql - ;
the former causes the specified signal to be ignored
and the latter causes the default action to be taken.
Omitting the
.Ar action
and using only signal numbers is another way to request the default action.
In a subshell or utility environment,
the shell resets trapped (but not ignored) signals to the default action.
The
.Ic trap
command has no effect on signals that were ignored on entry to the shell.
.Pp
Option
.Fl l
causes the
.Ic trap
command to display a list of valid signal names.
.It Ic true
A null command that returns a 0 (true) exit value.
.It Ic type Op Ar name ...
Interpret each
.Ar name
as a command and print the resolution of the command search.
Possible resolutions are:
shell keyword, alias, special shell builtin, 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.
.It Ic ulimit Oo Fl HSabcdfklmnopstuvw Oc Op Ar limit
Set or display resource limits (see
.Xr getrlimit 2 ) .
If
.Ar limit
is specified, the named resource will be set;
otherwise the current resource value will be displayed.
.Pp
If
.Fl 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
.Fl S
option
specifies the soft limits instead.
When displaying limits,
only one of
.Fl S
or
.Fl H
can be given.
The default is to display the soft limits,
and to set both the hard and the soft limits.
.Pp
Option
.Fl a
causes the
.Ic ulimit
command to display all resources.
The parameter
.Ar limit
is not acceptable in this mode.
.Pp
The remaining options specify which resource value is to be
displayed or modified.
They are mutually exclusive.
.Bl -tag -width indent
.It Fl b Ar sbsize
The maximum size of socket buffer usage, in bytes.
.It Fl c Ar coredumpsize
The maximal size of core dump files, in 512-byte blocks.
Setting
.Ar coredumpsize
to 0 prevents core dump files from being created.
.It Fl d Ar datasize
The maximal size of the data segment of a process, in kilobytes.
.It Fl f Ar filesize
The maximal size of a file, in 512-byte blocks.
.It Fl k Ar kqueues
The maximal number of kqueues
(see
.Xr kqueue 2 )
for this user ID.
.It Fl l Ar lockedmem
The maximal size of memory that can be locked by a process, in
kilobytes.
.It Fl m Ar memoryuse
The maximal resident set size of a process, in kilobytes.
.It Fl n Ar nofiles
The maximal number of descriptors that could be opened by a process.
.It Fl o Ar umtxp
The maximal number of process-shared locks
(see
.Xr pthread 3 )
for this user ID.
.It Fl p Ar pseudoterminals
The maximal number of pseudo-terminals for this user ID.
.It Fl s Ar stacksize
The maximal size of the stack segment, in kilobytes.
.It Fl t Ar time
The maximal amount of CPU time to be used by each process, in seconds.
.It Fl u Ar userproc
The maximal number of simultaneous processes for this user ID.
.It Fl v Ar virtualmem
The maximal virtual size of a process, in kilobytes.
.It Fl w Ar swapuse
The maximum amount of swap space reserved or used for this user ID,
in kilobytes.
.El
.It Ic umask Oo Fl S Oc Op Ar mask
Set the file creation mask (see
.Xr umask 2 )
to the octal or symbolic (see
.Xr chmod 1 )
value specified by
.Ar mask .
If the argument is omitted, the current mask value is printed.
If the
.Fl S
option is specified, the output is symbolic, otherwise the output is octal.
.It Ic unalias Oo Fl a Oc Op Ar name ...
The specified alias names are removed.
If
.Fl a
is specified, all aliases are removed.
.It Ic unset Oo Fl fv Oc Ar name ...
The specified variables or functions are unset and unexported.
If the
.Fl v
option is specified or no options are given, the
.Ar name
arguments are treated as variable names.
If the
.Fl f
option is specified, the
.Ar name
arguments are treated as function names.
.It Ic wait Op Ar job ...
Wait for each specified
.Ar job
to complete and return the exit status of the last process in the
last specified
.Ar job .
If any
.Ar job
specified is unknown to the shell, it is treated as if it
were a known job that exited with exit status 127.
If no operands are given, wait for all jobs to complete
and return an exit status of zero.
.El
.Ss Command Line Editing
When
.Nm
is being used interactively from a terminal, the current command
and the command history
(see
.Ic fc
in
.Sx Built-in Commands )
can be edited using
.Nm vi Ns -mode
command line editing.
This mode uses commands similar
to a subset of those described in the
.Xr vi 1
man page.
The command
.Dq Li "set -o vi"
(or
.Dq Li "set -V" )
enables
.Nm vi Ns -mode
editing and places
.Nm
into
.Nm vi
insert mode.
With
.Nm vi Ns -mode
enabled,
.Nm
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.
.Pp
Similarly, the
.Dq Li "set -o emacs"
(or
.Dq Li "set -E" )
command can be used to enable a subset of
.Nm emacs Ns -style
command line editing features.
.Sh ENVIRONMENT
The following environment variables affect the execution of
.Nm :
.Bl -tag -width ".Ev LANGXXXXXX"
.It Ev ENV
Initialization file for interactive shells.
.It Ev LANG , Ev LC_*
Locale settings.
These are inherited by children of the shell,
and is used in a limited manner by the shell itself.
.It Ev OLDPWD
The previous current directory.
This is used and updated by
.Ic cd .
.It Ev PWD
An absolute pathname for the current directory,
possibly containing symbolic links.
This is used and updated by the shell.
.It Ev TERM
The default terminal setting for the shell.
This is inherited by children of the shell, and is used in the history
editing modes.
.El
.Pp
Additionally, environment variables are turned into shell variables
at startup,
which may affect the shell as described under
.Sx Special Variables .
.Sh FILES
.Bl -tag -width "/etc/suid_profileXX" -compact
.It Pa ~/.profile
User's login profile.
.It Pa /etc/profile
System login profile.
.It Pa /etc/shells
Shell database.
.It Pa /etc/suid_profile
Privileged shell profile.
.El
.Sh EXIT STATUS
If the
.Ar script
cannot be found, the exit status will be 127;
if it cannot be opened for another reason, the exit status will be 126.
Other 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
.Ic exit
builtin is used with a numeric argument, it
will return the argument.
.Sh SEE ALSO
.Xr builtin 1 ,
.Xr chsh 1 ,
.Xr echo 1 ,
.Xr ed 1 ,
.Xr emacs 1 Pq Pa ports/editors/emacs ,
.Xr kill 1 ,
.Xr printf 1 ,
.Xr pwd 1 ,
.Xr test 1 ,
.Xr vi 1 ,
.Xr execve 2 ,
.Xr getrlimit 2 ,
.Xr umask 2 ,
.Xr wctype 3 ,
.Xr editrc 5 ,
.Xr shells 5
.Sh HISTORY
A
.Nm
command, the Thompson shell, appeared in
.At v1 .
It was superseded in
.At v7
by the Bourne shell, which inherited the name
.Nm .
.Pp
This version of
.Nm
was rewritten in 1989 under the
.Bx
license after the Bourne shell from
.At V.4
and first appeared in
.Bx 4.3 Net/2 .
.Sh AUTHORS
This version of
.Nm
was originally written by
.An Kenneth Almquist .
.Sh BUGS
The
.Nm
utility does not recognize multibyte characters other than UTF-8.
Splitting using
.Va IFS
does not recognize multibyte characters.