Unix in a Nutshell, 4th Edition

Name

name ()

Synopsis

name () { commands; }

Define name as a function. POSIX syntax. The function definition can be written on one line or across many. Bash and the Korn shell provide the function keyword, alternate forms that work similarly. See the earlier section "Functions.”

Example

$ count () {
    > ls | wc -l
    >}

When issued at the command line, count now displays the number of files in the current directory.