Bash Features

This text is a brief description of the features that are present in the Bash shell (version 5.2, 19 September 2022). The Bash home page is http://www.gnu.org/software/bash/.

This is Edition 5.2, last updated 19 September 2022, of The GNU Bash Reference Manual, for Bash, Version 5.2.

Bash contains features that appear in other popular shells, and some features that only appear in Bash. Some of the shells that Bash has borrowed concepts from are the Bourne Shell (sh), the Korn Shell (ksh), and the C-shell (csh and its successor, tcsh). The following menu breaks the features up into categories, noting which features were inspired by other shells and which are specific to Bash.

This manual is meant as a brief introduction to features found in Bash. The Bash manual page should be used as the definitive reference on shell behavior.

1 Introduction
- 1.1 What is Bash?
- 1.2 What is a shell?
2 Definitions
3 Basic Shell Features
4 Shell Builtin Commands
5 Shell Variables
- 5.1 Bourne Shell Variables
- 5.2 Bash Variables
6 Bash Features
7 Job Control
8 Command Line Editing
9 Using History Interactively
10 Installing Bash
Appendix A Reporting Bugs
Appendix B Major Differences From The Bourne Shell
- B.1 Implementation Differences From The SVR4.2 Shell
Appendix C GNU Free Documentation License
Appendix D Indexes

Bash Reference Manual

Bash Features

Table of Contents