Syntax
This section describes the many symbols peculiar to the shell. The topics are arranged as follows:
Special files
Filename metacharacters
Brace expansion
Quoting
Command forms
Redirection forms
Special Files
The shell reads one or more startup files. Some of the files are read only when a shell is a login shell. Bash reads these files:
/etc/profile. Executed automatically at login.
The first file found from this list: ~/.bash_profile, ~/.bash_login, or ~/.profile. Executed automatically at login.
~/.bashrc is read by every nonlogin shell. However, if invoked as sh, Bash instead reads
$ENV
, for POSIX compatibility.
The getpwnam()
and getpwuid()
functions are the sources of home
directories for ~
name abbreviations. (On
personal systems, the user
database is stored in /etc/passwd.
However, on networked systems,
this information may come from NIS, NIS+, or LDAP, not your workstation
password file.)
Filename Metacharacters
| Match any string of zero or more characters. |
| Match any single character. |
| Match any one of the enclosed characters; a hyphen
can specify a range (e.g., |
| Match any character not enclosed as above. |
| Home directory of the current user. |
| Home directory of user name. |
| Current working directory
( |
| Previous working directory
( |
With the extglob
option
on:
| Match zero or one instance of pattern. |
| Match zero or more instances of pattern. |
| Match one or more instances of pattern ... |
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