A.P. Lawrence

Comments /Blog2005/dhart1.html


Sat Apr 9 11:26:26 2005: Subject:   TonyLawrence
I don't like cedspell because it just does what it thinks is right rather than ask a question as the sh on Openserver does. For example, if I have directories "fred" and "fref", then "cd fres" takes me to "fref". If this were implemented based on keyboard proximity, I think it would be much more useful - the "s" is right beside "d", so is more likely what I was trying to do - assuming, of course, that directory mismatches are bad typing rather than bad spelling. That may not always be the best assumption, but it's probably not a bad place to start.



The "cd fred?" question that the OpenServer sh does also has the side effect of eating a keystroke, which could help prevent a terrible mistake in a directory you didn't mean to be in. The "cdspell" option asks no question.

Fortunately, neither of these things work unless the shell is interactive (a script won't behave this way) and I do like that the default bash doesn't have this set.


Sat Apr 9 18:49:48 2005: Subject:   drag
There are some more tips here:


http://www.caliban.org/bash/

that are similar to what you have posted above..

One of the things that I think is VERY neat with newer versions of Bash is their programmable autocompletion. As I understand it, it's been possible to do this with ksh forever, but it's a new feature for bash. (versions 2.04, 2.05 and newer).

Sat Apr 9 19:37:44 2005: Subject:   TonyLawrence
See http://aplawrence.com/Unix/customtab.html for more on tab autocompletion




Sun Apr 10 05:53:40 2005: Subject: when to use .bashrc vs. .bash_profile   anonymous
As a newcomer to bash (OS X) I would like to know the subtle in and outs of when to use .bashrc and when to use .bash_profile - and while I am asking - when to use .profile....



Sun Apr 10 11:22:00 2005: Subject:   TonyLawrence
You aren't the first person to be confused by .bash_profile vs. .bashrc. This comes up regularly, and the difference is simply this:



Your .bash_profile runs once, when you login ( in Mac OS X, when you do Terminal->New Shell). The .bashrc is executed for every bash shell script run by you from then on. Use .bashrc to set variables etc. that you want to be set for every script you run from the shell. Set aliases in .bashrc also.

Examples: you might set PATH in .bashrc so that every script starts out with the same setting. If you had some file that logs backups and you want to see that every time you login, you'd put that command in .bash_profile.

The .bashrc runs BEFORE .bash_profile at login. Also, (as shown above in the excerpt from the man page), .bash_profile is bash's first choice, but if that doesn't exist, it will read .bash_login or try ~/.profile if neither exists - but it only uses ONE of those three. So bash will NEVER use .profile if you have .bash_profile.

Technically, .bash_profile runs for "interactive" shells. From the manual:

So you COULD get .bash_profile to run again if you needed it to with "-i", though that's more than unusual.





Mon Apr 11 19:41:00 2005: Subject: useless appreciation posting   anonymous
This is exactly the information I was looking for! Many thanks!



Fri Jan 25 07:53:53 2008: Subject:   anonymous


It is actually not so cut and dry...


Version 3.1.17(1)-release on Suse linux sources .bashrc followed by .bash_profile for login and for all subshells, only .bashrc

Version 3.2.0(2)-release on Irix sources only .bash_profile on login, and only .bashrc for subshells.

Version 3.2.17(6)-release on Solaris sources only .bashrc for logins and only .bashrc for subshells

With this level of inconsistency across platforms, no wonder people are confused!

Fri Jan 25 12:49:55 2008: Subject:   TonyLawrence


When implementors get confused, how can users avoid it?

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