JP Vossen - bash Cookbook, 2nd Edition

-cstring

Commands are read from string, if present. Any arguments after string are interpreted as positional parameters, starting with $0.

-D

A list of all double-quoted strings preceded by $ is written to standard output. These are the strings that are subject to language translation when the current locale is not C or POSIX. This also turns on the -n option.

-i

Makes the shell an interactive shell. Ignores signals TERM, INT, and QUIT. With job control in effect, TTIN, TTOU, and TSTP are also ignored.

-l

Makes bash act as if it were invoked as a login shell.

-ooption

Takes the same arguments as set -o (see ).

-O,
+Oshopt-option

shopt-option is one of the shell options accepted by the shopt builtin. If shopt-option is present, -O sets the value of that option; +O unsets it. If shopt-option is not supplied, the names and values of the shell options accepted by shopt are written to standard output. If the invocation option is +O, the output is displayed in a format that may be reused as input.

-s

Reads commands from standard input. If an argument is given to bash, this flag takes precedence (i.e., the argument wont be treated as a script name and standard input will be read).

-r

Makes the shell a restricted shell.

-v

Prints shell input lines as theyre read.

-

Signals the end of options and disables further option processing. Any options after this are treated as filenames and arguments. -- is synonymous with -.

--debugger

Arranges for the debugger profile to be executed before the shell starts. Turns on extended debugging mode and shell function tracing in bash 3.0 or later.

--dump-strings

Does the same as -D.

--dump-po-strings

Does the same as -D, but the output is in the GNU gettext portable object (.po) file format.

--help

Displays a usage message and exits.

--login

Makes bash act as if it were invoked as a login shell. Same as -l.

--noediting

Does not use the GNU readline library to read command lines if the shell is interactive.

--noprofile

Does not read the startup file /etc/profile or any of the personal initialization files.

--norc

Does not read the initialization file ~/.bashrc if the shell is interactive. This is on by default if the shell is invoked as sh.

--posix

Changes the behavior of bash to follow the POSIX standard more closely where the default operation of bash is different.

--rcfile file , --init-file file

Executes commands read from file instead of the initialization file ~/.bashrc, if the shell is interactive.

--restricted

Equivalent to -r.

--verbose

Equivalent to -v.

--version

Shows the version number of this instance of bash and then exits.

\a

The ASCII bell character (007).

\A

The current time in 24-hour HH:MM format.

\d

The date in Weekday Month Day format.

\D{format}

The format is passed to strftime(3) and the result is inserted into the prompt string; an empty format results in a locale-specific time representation. The braces are required.

\e

The ASCII escape character (033).

\H

The hostname.

\h

The hostname up to the first ..

\j

The number of jobs currently managed by the shell.

\l

The basename of the shells terminal device name.

\n

A carriage return and line feed.

\r

A carriage return.

\s

The name of the shell.

\T

The current time in 12-hour HH:MM:SS format.

\t

The current time in 24-hour HH:MM:SS format.

\@

The current time in 12-hour a.m./p.m. format.

\u

The username of the current user.

\v

The version of bash (e.g., 2.00).

\V

The release of bash (the version and patch level; e.g., 3.00.0).

\w

The current working directory, with