Changes in Bash Version 4.2 To Bash 4.3

This document details the changes between this version, bash-4.
3-release, and
the previous version, bash-4.3-rc2.
1.
Changes to Bash
a.
Only Posix-mode shells should exit on an assignment failure in the

temporary environment preceding a special builtin. This is how it's been
documented.
b.
Fixed a bug that caused a failed special builtin to not exit a posix-mode
shell if the failing builtin was on the LHS of a && or ||.
c.
Changed the handling of unquoted backslashes in regular expressions to be

closer to bash-4.2.
d.
globstar (**) no longer traverses symbolic links that resolve to

directories. This eliminates some duplicate entries.
e.
Fixed a bug that caused a SIGCHLD trap handler to not be able to change the
SIGCHLD disposition.
f.
Fixed a bug that caused a crash when -x was enabled and a command
contained a printable multibyte (wide) character.
g.
Fixed a bug that caused an interactive shell without line editing enabled
to read invalid data after receiving a SIGINT.
h.
Fixed a bug that caused command word completion to fail if the directory in
$PATH where the completion would be found contained single or double quotes.
i.
Fixed a bug that caused a shell with -v enabled to print commands in $()
multiple times.
2.
Changes to Readline
a.
Fixed a bug that caused ùndo' to reference freed memory or null pointers.
3.
New Features in Bash
a.
The [[ -v ]] option now understands array references (foo[1]) and returns

success if the referenced element has a value.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------This document details the changes between this version, bash-4.3-rc2, and the
previous version, bash-4.3-rc1.
1.
Changes to Bash
a. Fixed a bug that left variables set by printf -v marked as invisible.

b. Fixed an off-by-one error in a job control warning message.
c. Fixed a bug that caused the shell to crash after declaring a nameref variable
without a value.
d. Fixed a bug that caused asynchronous commands to not set $? correctly.
e. Fixed a bug that caused out-of-order execution when executing aliases with
embedded newlines containing `.' commands.
f. Fixed a bug that caused error messages generated by expansion errors in
`for' commands to have the wrong line number.
g. Fixed a bug that caused the `wait' builtin to not be interruptible in an
interactive shell with job control enabled.

h. Fixed a bug that caused SIGINT and SIGQUIT to not be trappable in
asynchronous subshell commands.
i. Bash now requires that the value assigned to a nameref variable be a valid
shell identifier (variable name or array reference).
j. Converting an existing variable to a nameref variable now turns off the
-i/-l/-u/-c attributes.
k. Displaying a nameref variable with `declare -p' now displays the nameref
variable and its value rather than following the nameref chain.
l. Fixed a problem with interrupt handling that caused a second and subsequent
SIGINT to be ignored by interactive shells.
m. Fixed a bug that caused certain positional parameter and array expansions
to mishandle (discard) null positional parameters and array elements.
n. The shell no longer blocks receipt of signals while running trap handlers
for those signals, and allows most trap handlers to be run recursively
(running trap handlers while a trap handler is executing).
o. The shell now handles backslashes in regular expression arguments to the
[[ command's =~ operator slightly differently, resulting in more
consistent behavior.
2.
Changes to Readline
a. Fixed a bug that could cause readline to crash and seg fault attempting to
expand an empty history entry.
b. Fixed a bug that caused a bad entry in the $LS_COLORS variable to abort all
color processing but leave color enabled.
c. Fixed a bug that caused display problems with multi-line prompts containing
invisible characters on multiple lines.
d. Fixed a bug that caused effects made by undoing changes to a history line to
be discarded.
3.
4.
New Features in Readline
a.
When creating shared libraries on Mac OS X, the pathname written into the
library (install_name) no longer includes the minor version number.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------This document details the changes between this version, bash-4.3-rc1, and the
previous version, bash-4.3-beta2.
1.
Changes to Bash
a. Fixed a bug in bash completion that caused a tilde to be expanded even if

the `direxpand' option was not enabled.
b. Fixed a potential bug that could cause corrupted input in interactive shells
running without line editing and with ìgnoreeof' enabled.
c. Fixed a bug that could cause failures when opening pipes back to shells
created to run process substitutions.
d. Fixed a bug that caused an assignment to TEXTDOMAIN to require TEXTDOMAINDIR
to be set in order to actually change the current text domain.

e. Changed the way redirections are printed to avoid confusion when the target
of an output redirection is a process substitution beginning with `>'.
2.
Changes to Readline
a. Shared library building is now supported on Mac OS X 10.9 (Darwin 13).

3.
a. `cd' has a new `-@' option to browse a file's extended attributes on

systems that support O_XATTR.
4.
a. There are additional default key bindings for MinGW32

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------This document details the changes between this version, bash-4.3-beta2, and the
previous version, bash-4.3-beta.
1.
Changes to Bash
a.
Fixed a bug that caused assignment to an unset variable using a negative

subscript to result in a segmentation fault.
b.
Fixed a bug that caused assignment to a string variable using a negative

subscript to use the incorrect index.
c.
Fixed a bug that caused some strings to be interpreted as invalid

extended globbing expressions when used with the help builtin.
d.
Fixed a bug that caused an attempt to trap a signal whose disposition

cannot be changed to reference uninitialized memory.
e.
Command completion now skips assignment statements preceding a command

name and completes the command.
f.
Fixed a bug that caused `compgen -f' in a non-interactive shell to dump

core under certain circumstances.
g.
Fixed a bug that caused the `read -N' to misbehave when the input stream
contains 0xff.
2.
Changes to Readline
a.
Changed message when an incremental search fails to include "failed" in

the prompt and display the entire search string instead of just the last
matching portion.
b.
Fixed a bug that caused an arrow key typed to an incremental search prompt
to process the key sequence incorrectly.
c.
Additional key bindings for arrow keys on MinGW.
3.
a.
The help builtin now attempts substring matching (as it did through
bash-4.2) if exact string matching fails.
b.
The fc builtin now interprets -0 as the current command line.
c.
Completing directory names containing shell variables now adds a trailing
slash if the expanded result is a directory.

4.
a.
rl_change_environment: new application-settable variable that controls

whether or not Readline modifies the environment (currently readline
modifies only LINES and COLUMNS).
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------This document details the changes between this version, bash-4.3-beta, and the
previous version, bash-4.3-alpha.
1.
Changes to Bash
a.
Fixed a bug in the prompt directory name "trimming" code that caused
memory corruption and garbled the results.
b.
Fixed a bug that caused single quotes that resulted from $'...' quoting
in the replacement portion of a double-quoted ${word/pat/rep} expansion
to be treated as quote characters.
c.
Fixed a bug that caused assignment statements preceding a command word to

result in assignment statements following a declaration command to not be
expanded like assignment statements.
d.
Fixed a bug with variable search order in the presence of local variables
with the same name as variables in the temporary environment supplied to
a shell function.
e.
Fixed a bug that caused constructs like 1<(2) to be interpreted as process

substitutions even in an arithmetic context.
f.
Fixed several cases where ìnvisible' variables (variables with attributes

but no values, which are technically unset) were treated incorrectly.
g.
Fixed a bug that caused group commands in pipelines that were not the
last element to not run the EXIT trap.
h.
Fixed a bug that caused ùnset -n' to not unset a nameref variable in
certain cases.
i.
Fixed the nameref circular reference checking to be less strict and only
disallow a nameref variable with the same value as its name at the global
scope.
j.
Fixed a bug that caused trap handlers to be executed recursively,

corrupting internal data structures.
k.
Fixed a bug that could result in bash not compiling if certain options were
not enabled.
l.
Fixed a bug that caused the arithmetic expansion code to attempt variable
assignments when operator precedence prohibited them.
m. Word expansions like ${foo##bar} now understand indirect variable

references.
n.
Fixed a bug that caused `declare -fp name' to not display a function
definition.
o.
Fixed a bug that caused asynchronous child processes to modify the stdin
file pointer when bash was using it to read a script, which modified the
parent's value as well.
2.
Changes to Readline
a.
Fixed a bug in vi mode that caused the arrow keys to set the saved last
vi-mode command to the wrong value.
b.
Fixed a bug that caused double-quoted strings to be scanned incorrectly

when being used as the value of a readline variable assignment.
c.
Fixed a bug with vi mode that prevented `.' from repeating a command
entered on a previous line (command).
d.
Fixed a bug that could cause completion to core dump if it was interrupted
by a signal.
e.
Readline now sends the meta-key enable string to the terminal if the
terminal has been successfully initialized.
f.
Readline now calls the signal hook after resizing the terminal when it
receives a SIGWINCH.
g.
Fixed a bug that could cause the history list code to perform an out-ofbounds array reference if the history list is empty.
3.
a.
Shells started to run process substitutions now run any trap set on EXIT.
b.
There is now a configure-time option to enable the globasciiranges option

by default.
c.
The read builtin now checks its first variable argument for validity before
trying to read any input.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------This document details the changes between this version, bash-4.3-alpha,

and the previous version, bash-4.2-release.
1.
Changes to Bash
a.
Fixed several bugs concerning incomplete bracket expressions in filename

generation (globbing) patterns.
b.
Fixed a bug with single quotes and WORD in ${param op WORD} when running
in Posix mode.
c.
Fixed a bug that caused the pattern removal and pattern substitution word
expansions and case statement word expansion to not match the empty string.
d.
Fixed a bug that caused the tzset() function to not work after changing
the TZ enviroment variable.
e.
Fixed a bug that caused the RHS of an assignment statement to undergo

word splitting when it contained an unquoted $@.
f.
Fixed bugs that caused the shell to not react to a SIGINT sent while
waiting for a child process to exit.
g.
Bash doesn't try to run things in a signal handler context when it gets a
signal (SIGINT/SIGHUP/etc) while reading input using readline but still
be responsive to terminating signals.
h.
Fixed a bug that caused bash to go into an infinite loop if a filename

to be matched contained an invalid multibyte character.
i.
Fixed a bug that caused PS4 to end up being truncated if it is longer

than 128 bytes.
j.
Fixed a bug that caused brace expansion to not skip over double-quoted
command substitution.
k.
System-specific updates for: DJGPP, HP/UX, Mac OS X
l.
Fixed a bug in displaying commands that caused redirections to be associated

with the wrong part of the command.
m.
Fixed the coproc cleanup to unset the appropriate shell variables when a
coproc terminates.
n.
Fixed a bug that caused `fc' to dump core due to incorrect calculation of
the last history entry.
o.
Added workarounds for FreeBSD's implementation of faccessat/eaccess and

`test -x'.
p.
Fixed a bug that caused the shell to not match patterns containing
control-A.
q.
Fixed a bug that could result in doubled error messages when the `printf'
builtin got a write error.
r.
Fixed a bug that caused the shell to not correctly expand words containing
multiple consecutive quoted empty strings (""""""aa).
s.
Fixed a bug that caused the shell to not correctly parse multi-line
process substitutions containing comments and quoted strings.
t.
Fixed a problem with the bash malloc's internal idea of the top of the
memory heap that resulted in incorrect decisions to try to reduce the
break and give memory back to the kernel.
u.
There are changes to the expansions peformed on compound array assignments,

in an effort to make foo=( [ind1]=bar [ind2]=baz ) identical to
foo[ind1]=bar foo[ind2]=baz.
v.
Bash now reports an error if `read -a name' is used when `name' is an

existing associative array.
w.
Fixed a bug that allowed an attempted assignment to a readonly variable

in an arithmetic expression to not return failure.
x.
Fixed several bugs that caused completion functions to be invoked even when
the cursor was before the first word in the command.
y.
Fixed a bug that caused parsing a command substitution to overwrite the

parsing state associated with the complete input line.
z.
Fixed several bugs with the built-in snprintf replacement and field widths
and floating point.
aa. Fixed a bug that caused incorrect offset calculations and input buffer
corruption when reading files longer than 2^31 bytes.
bb. Fixed several bugs where bash performed arithmetic evaluation in contexts
where evaluation is suppressed.
cc. Fixed a bug that caused bash to close FIFOs used for process substitution
too early when a shell function was executing, but protect against using
all file descriptors when the shell functions are invoked inside loops.
dd. Added checks for printable (and non-printable) multibyte characters for
use in error messages.
ee. Fixed a bug that caused Ô (operate-and-get-next) to not work correctly
at the end of the history list.
ff. Fixed a bug that caused command-oriented history to incorrectly combine
here documents into one line.
gg. Fixed a bug that caused importing SHELLOPTS from the environment into a
Posix-mode shell to print an error message and refuse to parse it.
hh. Fixed a bug that caused the shell to delete an extra history entry when
using `history -s'.
ii. Fixed a bug that caused floating-point exceptions and overflow errors
for the / and % arithmetic operators when using INTMAX_MIN and -1.
jj. Fixed a bug that caused parsing errors when reading an arithmetic for
loop inside a command substitution.
kk. Fixed a bug that caused a readonly function to be unset when unset was
called without the -f or -v option.
ll. Fixed several bugs in the code that quotes characters special to regular
expressions when used in a quoted string on the RHS of the =~ operator
to the [[ command.
mm. Fixed a bug that caused redirections to fail because the file descriptor
limit was set to a value less than 10.
nn. Fixed a bug that caused the `read' builtin to execute code in a signal
handler context if read timed out.
oo. Fixed a bug that caused extended globbing patterns to not match files
beginning with `.' correctly when a `.' was explicitly supplied in the
pattern.
pp. Fixed a bug that caused key sequences longer than two characters to not
work when used with `bind -x'.
qq. Fixed a bug that resulted in redefined functions having the wrong source
file names in BASH_SOURCE.
rr. Fixed a bug that caused the read builtin to assign null strings to variables
when using `read -N', which caused core dumps when referenced
ss. Fixed a bug that caused `bash -m script' to not enable job control while
running the script.
tt. Fixed a bug that caused `printf -v var' to dump core when used with the
%b format code.
uu. Fixed a bug that caused the shell to exit with the wrong status if -e was
active and the shell exited on a substitution error.
vv. Fixed a bug that caused the shell to seg fault if an array variable with
the same name as an existing associative array was implicitly created by
an assignment (declare a[n]=b).
ww. Fixed a bug that caused a redirection to misbehave if the number specified
for a file descriptor overflows an intmax_t.
xx. Fixed several bugs with the handling of valid and invalid unicode character
values when used with the \u and \U escape sequences to printf and $'...'.
yy. Fixed a bug that caused tildes to not be escaped in expanded filenames,
making them subject to later expansion.
zz. When using the pattern substitution word expansion, bash now runs the
replacement string through quote removal, since it allows quotes in that
string to act as escape characters. This is not backwards compatible, so
it can be disabled by setting the bash compatibility mode to 4.2.
aaa. Fixed the rest of the cases where the shell runs non-allowed code in a
signal handler context.
bbb. Fixed a bug that caused spurious DEL characters (\177) to appear in
double-quoted expansion where the RHS is evaluated to the empty string.
ccc. Fixed a bug that caused the use of the shell's internal random number
generator for temporary file names to perturb the random number
sequence.
ddd. Fixed several bugs that caused `declare -g' to not set the right global
variables or to misbehave when declaring global indexed arrays.
eee. Fixed a logic bug that caused extended globbing in a multibyte locale to
cause failures when using the pattern substititution word expansions.
fff. Fixed a bug that caused the `lastpipe' option to corrupt the file
descriptor used to read the script.
ggg. Fixed a bug that causes the shell to delete DEL characters in the
expanded value of variables used in the same quoted string as variables
that expand to nothing.
hhh. Fixed a bug that caused the shell to assign the wrong value from an
assignment like (( x=7 )) when `x' was an existing array variable.
iii. Fixed a bug that caused the shell to misbehave when generating sequences
and the boundary values overflow an intmax_t.
jjj. Fixed a bug caused expansion errors if an expansion of "$@" appeared
next to another expansion (e.g.. "${@}${x}").
kkk. Fixed a potential buffer overflow bug when performing /dev/fd expansion.
lll. Fixed a bug that resulted in an extra semicolon being added to compound
assignments when they were added to the history list.
mmm. Fixed a bug that caused mapfile to read one extra line from the input.
nnn. Fixed a bug that caused the mail checking code to use uninitialized
values.
ooo. Fixed a bug that prevented history timestamps from being saved if the
history comment character is unset.
ppp. Fixed a bug that caused the case-modifying expansions to not work with
multibyte characters.
qqq. Fixed a bug that caused the edit-and-execute bindable readline command
to see the wrong data if invoked in the middle of a multi-line quoted
string.
rrr. Fixed a bug that resulted in the shell returning the wrong exit status
for a background command on systems that recycle PIDs very quickly.

sss. Fixed a bug that caused asynchronous group commands to not run any EXIT
trap defined in the body of the command.
ttt. Fixed a bug that caused èval "... ; return"' to not clean up properly.
uuu. Fixed a bug that caused the shell to dump core if `read' reads an escaped
IFS whitespace character.
vvv. Fixed a bug that caused BASH_COMMAND to be set to an incorrect value when
executing a (...) subshell.
www. Fixed a couple of pointer aliasing bugs with the token string in arithmetic
evaluation.
xxx. Fixed a bug with parsing multi-line command substitutions when reading
the `do' keyword followed by whitespace.
yyy. Fixed a bug that caused the shell to seg fault if the time given to the
printf %(...)T format overflowed the value accepted by localtime(3).
zzz. Fixed a problem with displaying help topics in two columns when the
translated text contained multibyte characters.
aaaa. Fixed a bug with the extended globbing pattern matcher where a `*' was
followed by a negated extended glob pattern.
bbbb. Fixed a race condition with short-lived coproc creation and reaping that
caused the child process to be reaped before the various coproc shell
variables were initialized.
cccc. Fixed a bug where turning off èrrexit' in command substitution subshells
was not reflected in $SHELLOPTS.
dddd. Partially fixed an inconsistency in how the shell treated shell
functions run from an EXIT trap.
eeee. Fixed a bug in how the shell invalidated FIFOs used for process
substitution when executing a pipeline (once rather than in every child).
ffff. Fixed a bug that occurred when expanding a special variable ($@, $*)
within double quotes and the expansion resulted in an empty string.
gggg. Fixed bugs with executing a SIGCHLD trap handler to make sure that it's
executed once per exited child.
hhhh. Fixed a bug that caused `declare' and `test' to find variables that
had been given attributes but not assigned values. Such variables are
not set.
iiii. Fixed a bug that caused commands in process substitutions to not look in
the local temporary environment when performing word expansions.
jjjj. Fixed several problems with globstar expansions (**/**) returning null
filenames and multiple instances of the same pathname.
kkkk. Fixed an oversight that did not allow the exit status of `coproc' to
be inverted using `!'.
llll. Fixed a bug that caused the -e option to be re-enabled using `set -e'
even when executing in a context where -e is ignored.
mmmm. Fixed a (mostly theoretical) bug with input lines longer than SIZE_MAX.
nnnn. Fixed a bug that could result in double evaluation of command

substitutions when they appear in failed redirections.
oooo. Fixed a bug that could cause seg faults during `mapfile' callbacks if
the callback unsets the array variable mapfile is using.
pppp. Fixed several problems with variable assignments using ${var:=value}
when the variable assignment is supposed to have side effects.
qqqq. Fixed a bug that caused a failure of an assignment statement preceding a
builtin caused the next invocation of a special builtin to exit the shell.
rrrr. Fixed several problems with IFS when it appears in the temporary
environment
and is used in redirections.
ssss. Fixed a problem that caused IFS changes using ${IFS:=value} to modify
how preceding expansions were split.
tttt. Fixed a problem that caused subshells to not run an EXIT trap they set.
uuuu. Fixed a problem that caused shells started in posix mode to attempt to
import shell functions with invalid names from the environment. We now
print a warning.
vvvv. Worked around a kernel problem that caused SIGCHLD to interrupt open(2)
on a FIFO used for process substitution, even if the SIGCHLD handler was
installed with the SA_RESTART flag.
wwww. Fixed a problem that resulted in inconsistent expansion of $* and ${a[*]}.
xxxx. Fixed a problem that caused `read -t' to crash when interrupted by
SIGINT.
yyyy. Fixed a problem that caused pattern removal to fail randomly because the
pattern matcher read beyond the end of a string.
zzzz. Fixed a bug that caused core dumps when shell functions tried to create
local shadow copies of special variables like GROUPS.
aaaaa. Fixed a bug that caused SIGTERM to be occasionally lost by children of
interactive shells when it arrived before the child process reset the
handler from SIG_DFL.
bbbbb. Fixed a bug that caused redirections like <&n- to leave file descriptor
n closed if executed with a builtin command.
ccccc. Fixed a bug that caused incorrect completion quoting when completing a
word containing a globbing character with `show-all-if-ambiguous' set.
ddddd. Fixed a bug that caused printf's %q format specifier not to quote a
tilde even if it appeared in a location where it would be subject to
tilde expansion.
2.
Changes to Readline
a.
Fixed a bug that did not allow the `dd', `cc', or `yy' vi editing mode
commands to work on the entire line.
b.
Fixed a bug that caused redisplay problems with prompts longer than 128
characters and history searches.
c.
Fixed a bug that caused readline to try and run code to modify its idea
of the screen size in a signal handler context upon receiving a SIGWINCH.

d.
Fixed a bug that caused the `meta' key to be enabled beyond the duration
of an individual call top readline().
e.
Added a workaround for a wcwidth bug in Mac OS X that caused readline's

redisplay to mishandle zero-width combining characters.
f.
Fixed a bug that caused readline to `forget' part of a key sequence when
a multiple-key sequence caused it to break out of an incremental search.
g.
Fixed bugs that caused readline to execute code in a signal handler

context if interrupted while reading from the file system during completion.
h.
Fixed a bug that caused readline to `forget' part of a key sequence when
reading an unbound multi-character key sequence.
i.
Fixed a bug that caused Readline's signal handlers to be installed beyond

the bounds of a single call to readline().
j.
Fixed a bug that caused the `.' command to not redo the most recent `R'
command in vi mode.
k.
Fixed a bug that caused ignoring case in completion matches to result in

readline using the wrong match.
l.
Paren matching now works in vi insert mode.
m. Fix menu-completion to make show-all-if-ambiguous and menu-complete-displayprefix

work together.
n.
Fixed a bug that didn't allow the `cc', `dd', or `yy' commands to be redone
in vi editing mode.
o.
Fixed a bug that caused the filename comparison code to not compare
multibyte characters correctly when using case-sensitive or case-mapping
comparisons.
p.
Fixed the input reading loop to call the input hook function only when there
is no terminal input available.
q.
Fixed a bug that caused binding a macro to a multi-character key sequence

where the sequence and macro value share a common prefix to not perform
the macro replacement.
r.
Fixed several redisplay errors with multibyte characters and prompts

containing invisible characters when using horizontal scrolling.
s.
Fixed a bug that caused redisplay errors when trying to overwrite

existing characters using multibyte characters.
3.
a.
The `helptopic' completion action now maps to all the help topics, not just
the shell builtins.
b.
The `help' builtin no longer does prefix substring matching, so `help read'
does not match `readonly'.
c.
The shell can be compiled to not display a message about processes that
terminate due to SIGTERM.
d.
Non-interactive shells now react to the setting of checkwinsize and set
LINES and COLUMNS after a foreground job exits.

e.
There is a new shell option, `globasciiranges', which, when set to on,

forces globbing range comparisons to use character ordering as if they
were run in the C locale.
f.
There is a new shell option, `direxpand', which makes filename completion

expand variables in directory names in the way bash-4.1 did.
g.
In Posix mode, the `command' builtin does not change whether or not a
builtin it shadows is treated as an assignment builtin.
h.
The `return' and èxit' builtins accept negative exit status arguments.
i.
The word completion code checks whether or not a filename containing a

shell variable expands to a directory name and appends `/' to the word
as appropriate. The same code expands shell variables in command names
when performing command completion.
j.
In Posix mode, it is now an error to attempt to define a shell function

with the same name as a Posix special builtin.
k.
When compiled for strict Posix conformance, history expansion is disabled

by default.
l.
The history expansion character (!) does not cause history expansion when
followed by the closing quote in a double-quoted string.
m.
`complete' and its siblings compgen/compopt now takes a new `-o noquote'
option to inhibit quoting of the completions.
n.
Setting HISTSIZE to a value less than zero causes the history list to be
unlimited (setting it 0 zero disables the history list).
o.
Setting HISTFILESIZE to a value less than zero causes the history file size
to be unlimited (setting it to 0 causes the history file to be truncated
to zero size).
p.
The `read' builtin now skips NUL bytes in the input.
q.
There is a new `bind -X' option to print all key sequences bound to Unix
commands.
r.
When in Posix mode, `read' is interruptible by a trapped signal. After

running the trap handler, read returns 128+signal and throws away any
partially-read input.
s.
The command completion code skips whitespace and assignment statements

before looking for the command name word to be completed.
t.
The build process has a new mechanism for constructing separate help files
that better reflects the current set of compilation options.
u.
The -nt and -ot options to test now work with files with nanosecond
timestamp resolution.
v.
The shell saves the command history in any shell for which history is
enabled and HISTFILE is set, not just interactive shells.
w.
The shell has `nameref' variables and new -n(/+n) options to declare and
unset to use them, and a `test -R' option to test for them.
x.
The shell now allows assigning, referencing, and unsetting elements of

indexed arrays using negative subscripts (a[-1]=2, echo ${a[-1]}) which
count back from the last element of the array.

y.
The {x}<word redirection feature now allows words like {array[ind]} and
can use variables with special meanings to the shell (e.g., BASH_XTRACEFD).
z.
There is a new CHILD_MAX special shell variable; its value controls the
number of exited child statues the shell remembers.
aa. There is a new configuration option (--enable-direxpand-default) that

causes the `direxpand' shell option to be enabled by default.
bb. Bash does not do anything special to ensure that the file descriptor
assigned to X in {x}<foo remains open after the block containing it
completes.
cc. The `wait' builtin has a new `-n' option to wait for the next child to
change status.
dd. The `printf' %(...)T format specifier now uses the current time if no
argument is supplied.
ee. There is a new variable, BASH_COMPAT, that controls the current shell
compatibility level.
ff. The `popd' builtin now treats additional arguments as errors.
gg. The brace expansion code now treats a failed sequence expansion as a
simple string and will continue to expand brace terms in the remainder
of the word.
4.
a.
Readline is now more responsive to SIGHUP and other fatal signals when
reading input from the terminal or performing word completion but no
longer attempts to run any not-allowable functions from a signal handler
context.
b.
There are new bindable commands to search the history for the string of
characters between the beginning of the line and the point
(history-substring-search-forward, history-substring-search-backward)
c.
Readline allows quoted strings as the values of variables when setting

them with `set'. As a side effect, trailing spaces and tabs are ignored
when setting a string variable's value.
d.
The history library creates a backup of the history file when writing it
and restores the backup on a write error.
e.
New application-settable variable: rl_filename_stat_hook: a function called

with a filename before using it in a call to stat(2). Bash uses it to
expand shell variables so things like $HOME/Downloads have a slash
appended.
f.
New bindable function `print-last-kbd-macro', prints the most-recentlydefined keyboard macro in a reusable format.
g.
New user-settable variable `colored-stats', enables use of colored text

to denote file types when displaying possible completions (colored analog
of visible-stats).
h.
New user-settable variable `keyseq-timout', acts as an inter-character

timeout when reading input or incremental search strings.
i.
New application-callable function: rl_clear_history. Clears the history list
and frees all readline-associated private data.

j.
New user-settable variable, show-mode-in-prompt, adds a characters to the

beginning of the prompt indicating the current editing mode.
k.
New application-settable variable: rl_input_available_hook; function to be

called when readline needs to check whether there is data available on its
input source. The default hook checks rl_instream.
l.
Readline calls an application-set event hook (rl_signal_event_hook) after

it gets a signal while reading input (read returns -1/EINTR but readline
does not handle the signal immediately) to allow the application to handle
or otherwise note it. Not currently called for SIGHUP or SIGTERM.
m.
If the user-settable variable `history-size' is set to a value less than

0, the history list size is unlimited.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------This document details the changes between this version, bash-4.2-release,

and the previous version, bash-4.2-rc2.
1.
Changes to Bash
a.
Fixed a bug that caused some variables to be clobbered by a longjmp,

resulting in stack corruption.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------This document details the changes between this version, bash-4.2-rc2,

1.
Changes to Bash
a.
Changes to bash_directory_completion_hook so that it's assigned to the

readline rl_directory_rewrite_hook variable, which modifies the directory
name passed to opendir without modifying the directory name the user
typed.
b.
Fixed bug in select builtin that caused it to not terminate correctly if

the read timed out due to $TMOUT.
c.
Fixed a problem that resulted in non-repeatable sequences of random

numbers when RANDOM=0.

and the previous version, bash-4.2-beta.
1.
Changes to Bash
a.
Fixed a bug that caused some redirection errors to leak file descriptors.
b.
Fixed a bug that caused unary `+' and `-' arithmetic operators to have a
higher precedence than unary `!' and `~'.
c.
Fixed a bug that caused simple commands in a pipeline to affect the exit
status ($?) seen by subsequent pipeline commands.
d.
A number of cygwin-specific changes to avoid the use of text-mode files

and file access, and to make sure that \r is handled correctly.
e.
Fixed a bug that caused the read builtin to not return failure if an
attempt is made to assign to a readonly variable.
f.
Fixed a bug that caused some builtin usage messages to not be translated.
g.
Fixed a bug that caused the getopts builtin to not return failure if an
attempt is made to assign to a readonly variable. Now it returns 2.
h.
Fixed the cd and pwd builtins to return failure if PWD is readonly and
cannot be assigned to.
i.
Added code to check the return value of access(2) on Solaris systems,

since it returns success for executable tests (e.g., `test -x') when
run by root, even if the file permissions don't allow execution.
2.
Changes to Readline
a.
Fixed a bug that caused directory names in words to be completed to not

be dequoted correctly.
3.
4.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------This document details the changes between this version, bash-4.2-beta,

and the previous version, bash-4.2-alpha.
1.
Changes to Bash
a.
Fixed a bug that caused the \W prompt string escape to not add a closing
NULL.
b.
Fixed a bug that caused partially-quoted words that were not subject to
word splitting to retained quoted NULLs.
c.
Added considerable efficiency speedups when pattern matching in multibyte

locales by skipping multibyte character functions where possible.
d.
Added considerable speedups to variable expansion when in multibyte locales.
e.
Fixed a bug that caused the expansion of $* when there are no positional
parameters to cause the shell to dump core when used in a pattern
matching context.
f.
Fixed a bug that caused variable expansions preceding regular builtins to

not change the shell environment during their execution.
2.
Changes to Readline
a.
Fixed a bug that made an explicit argument of 0 to yank-last-arg behave

as if it were a negative argument.

1.
Changes to Bash
a.
Fixed a bug in the parser when processing alias expansions containing

quoted newlines.
b.
Fixed a memory leak in associative array expansion.
c.
Fixed a bug that caused quoted here-strings to be requoted when printed.
d.
Fixed a bug in arithmetic expansion that caused the index in an array

expansion to be evaluated twice under certain circumstances.
e.
Fixed several bugs with the expansion and display of variables that have
been given attributes but not values and are technically unset.
f.
Fixed a bug that caused core dumps when using filename completion that
expands to a filename containing a globbing character.
g.
Fixed a bug that caused assignment statements preceding a special builtin

when running in Posix mode to not persist after the builtin completed
when the special builtin was executed in a shell function without any
local variables.
h.
Fixed a bug that caused a command to remain in the hash table even after
`hash command' did not find anything if there was already an existing
hashed pathname.
i.
Fixed several bugs caused by executing unsafe functions from a signal

handler in the cases where a signal handler is executed immediately
rather than setting a flag for later execution.
j.
Fixed a bug that caused some internal flag variables to be set

incorrectly if `read -t' timed out.
k.
Fixed a Posix compatibility issue by making sure that a backslash escaping

a `}' within a double-quoted ${...} parameter expansion is removed as part
of the parameter expansion.
l.
Fixed a bug that caused execution of a trap to overwrite PIPESTATUS.
m.
Fixed a bug that caused here documents to not be displayed correctly

when attached to commands inside compound commands.
n.
Fixed a bug that caused the printf builtin to use the wrong precision
when using the `*' modifier.
o.
Fixed a bug that caused an arriving SIGCHLD to interrupt output functions

like those invoked by echo or printf.
p.
Changed to use a more robust mechanism than eaccess(2) when test is

checking filenames for execution permission.
q.
Fixed a bug that caused spurious semicolons to be added into the command
history in certain cases.
r.
Fixed a bug that caused the shell to free non-allocated memory when
unsetting element 0 of an associative array after it was assigned
implicitly.
s.
Fixed a bug that could cause the shell to dump core if using the `v'
vi editing command on a multi-line command.
t.
Fixed a bug that left FIFOs opened by process substitutions open long
enough to potentially cause file descriptor exhaustion when running a
shell function or shell builtin.
u.
Fixed a bug that caused the history expansion functions to not recognize
process substitution or extended glob patterns as single words.
v.
Fixed a bug that caused restricted shells to set a restricted command's

exit status incorrectly.
w.
Fixed a bug that caused bash to ignore the wrong set of filenames when
completing a command using the `complete-filename' readline command.
x.
Fixed a bug that caused a -PID argument following a -s sig or -n sig to

not be interpreted as a signal specification.
y.
Changed posix-mode behavior of a parse error in a `.' script or èval'

command to exit the shell under Posix-specified conditions. Previous
versions printed a warning.
z.
Fixed a bug in \W prompt expansion that resulted in incorrect expansion

in the event of overlapping strings.
aa. Fixed a bug that caused the := parameter expansion operator to return the
wrong value as the result of the expansion.
bb. When in Posix mode, a single quote is not treated specially in a
double-quoted ${...} expansion, unless the expansion operator is
# or % or the non-Posix `//', `^', and `,'. In particular, it does
not define a new quoting context. This is from Posix interpretation 221.
cc. Fixed a bug that inadvertently allowed program names containing slashes
to be entered into the command hash table.
dd. Fixed a bug that caused the select builtin to incorrectly compute the
display width of the arguments in the presence of multibyte characters.
ee. Fixed a bug that caused bash to not change the xtrace file descriptor if
BASH_XTRACEFD was found in the shell environment at startup.
ff. Fixed a memory leak in the pattern removal parameter expansion.
gg. Fixed a bug that caused SIGINT to fail to interrupt a nested loop if the
loop was in a pipeline.
hh. Fixed a problem in $(...) parsing that caused the parser to add an extra
space to a here-document delimiter if the first word contained a `/'.
ii. Fixed a bug that caused functions defined with the `function' reserved
word to require braces around the function body.
jj. Fixed a bug that caused bash to dump core when a variable expansion being
used as an array subscript failed.
kk. Fixed a bug that caused bash to dump core if the case-modification
expansions were used on a variable with a null value.
ll. Fixed a bug that caused partially-quoted strings to be split incorrectly
if a variable with a null value was expanded within double quotes.
mm. The pattern substitution word expansion has been sped up dramatically
when running in a locale with multibyte characters.
nn. Fixed a bug that caused history -a to not write the correct lines to
the history file if all the new lines in the history list were added
since the last time the history file was read or written.
oo. Fixed a bug that caused completion of a word with an unclosed `` command
substitution to set the prompt incorrectly.
pp. Fixed a bug that caused extended globbing patterns in $HISTIGNORE or
$GLOBIGNORE to be incorrectly scanned.
qq. Fixed a bug caused by closing file descriptors 3-20 on shell startup.
shell now sets them to close-on-exec.
The
rr. Fixed a bug that caused the exit status of èxec file' to be set incorrectly
if `file' was a directory.

ss. Fixed a bug in the `.' builtin to make a non-interactive posix-mode shell
exit if the file argument to `.' is not found. Prefixing exec with
`command' makes the shell not exit. Posix requires this behavior.
tt. Fixed a bug that caused `sh -c 'command exec; exit 1' to hang.
uu. Fixed a bug in $(...) command substitution parsing that caused the shell
to treat backslash-newline incorrectly when parsing a comment.
vv. Fixed bug that caused brace expansion sequence generation to misbehave
when supplied integers greater than 2**31 - 1.
ww. Fixed a bug that caused failure to save file descriptors for redirections
to corrupt shell file descriptors.
xx. Fixed a bug that caused bash-forward-shellword to not correctly handle
quoted strings.
2.
Changes to Readline
a.
Fixed a bug that caused the unconverted filename to be added to the list of
completions when the application specified filename conversion functions.
b.
Fixed a bug that caused the wrong filename to be passed to opendir when the
application has specified a filename dequoting function.
c.
Fixed a bug when repeating a character search in vi mode in the case where
there was no search to repeat.
d.
When show-all-if-ambiguous is set, the completion routines no longer insert

a common match prefix that is shorter than the text being completed.
e.
The full set of vi editing commands may now be used in callback mode.
f.
Fixed a bug that caused readline to not update its idea of the terminal
dimensions while running in `no-echo' mode.
h.
Fixed a bug that caused readline to dump core if an application called

rl_prep_terminal without setting rl_instream.
i.
Fixed a bug that caused meta-prefixed characters bound to incremental

search forward or backward to not be recognized if they were typed
subsequently.
j.
The incremental search code treats key sequences that map to the same
functions as (default) ^G, ^W, and ^Y as equivalent to those characters.
k.
Fixed a bug in menu-complete that caused it to misbehave with large

negative argument.
l.
Fixed a bug that caused vi-mode yank-last-arg to ring the bell when invoked
at the end of the line.
3.
a.
èxec -a foo' now sets $0 to `foo' in an executable shell script without a

leading #!.
b.
Subshells begun to execute command substitutions or run shell functions or

builtins in subshells do not reset trap strings until a new trap is
specified. This allows $(trap) to display the caller's traps and the
trap strings to persist until a new trap is set.
c.
`trap -p' will now show signals ignored at shell startup, though their
disposition still cannot be modified.
d.
$'...', echo, and printf understand \uXXXX and \UXXXXXXXX escape sequences.
e.
declare/typeset has a new `-g' option, which creates variables in the

global scope even when run in a shell function.
f.
test/[/[[ have a new -v variable unary operator, which returns success if

`variable' has been set.
g.
Posix parsing changes to allow `! time command' and multiple consecutive

instances of `!' (which toggle) and `time' (which have no cumulative
effect).
h.
Posix change to allow `time' as a command by itself to print the elapsed

user, system, and real times for the shell and its children.
j.
$((...)) is always parsed as an arithmetic expansion first, instead of as

a potential nested command substitution, as Posix requires.
k.
A new FUNCNEST variable to allow the user to control the maximum shell
function nesting (recursive execution) level.
l.
The mapfile builtin now supplies a third argument to the callback command:
the line about to be assigned to the supplied array index.
m.
The printf builtin has a new %(fmt)T specifier, which allows time values
to use strftime-like formatting.
n.
There is a new `compat41' shell option.
o.
The cd builtin has a new Posix-mandated `-e' option.
p.
Negative subscripts to indexed arrays, previously errors, now are treated

as offsets from the maximum assigned index + 1.
q.
Negative length specifications in the ${var:offset:length} expansion,

previously errors, are now treated as offsets from the end of the variable.
r.
Parsing change to allow `time -p --'.
s.
Posix-mode parsing change to not recognize `time' as a keyword if the

following token begins with a `-'. This means no more Posix-mode
`time -p'. Posix interpretation 267.
t.
There is a new `lastpipe' shell option that runs the last command of a
pipeline in the current shell context. The lastpipe option has no
effect if job control is enabled.
u.
History expansion no longer expands the `$!' variable expansion.
v.
Posix mode shells no longer exit if a variable assignment error occurs

with an assignment preceding a command that is not a special builtin.
w.
Non-interactive mode shells exit if -u is enabled and an attempt is made

to use an unset variable with the % or # expansions, the `//', `^', or
`,' expansions, or the parameter length expansion.
x.
Posix-mode shells use the argument passed to `.' as-is if a $PATH search
fails, effectively searching the current directory. Posix-2008 change.
4.
a.
The history library does not try to write the history filename in the
current directory if $HOME is unset. This closes a potential security
problem if the application does not specify a history filename.
b.
New bindable variable `completion-display-width' to set the number of

columns used when displaying completions.
c.
New bindable variable `completion-case-map' to cause case-insensitive

completion to treat `-' and `_' as identical.
d.
There are new bindable vi-mode command names to avoid readline's caseinsensitive matching not allowing them to be bound separately.
e.
New bindable variable `menu-complete-display-prefix' causes the menu

completion code to display the common prefix of the possible completions
before cycling through the list, instead of after.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------This document details the changes between this version, bash-4.1-rc,

1.
Changes to Bash
a.
Fixed a bug that caused printf to not return a partial value when it
encountered an error while converting an integer argument.
b.
Fixed a bug that caused setting one of the compatNN options to not
turn off the others.
c.
The (undocumented) --wordexp option is no longer included by default.
d.
Fixed a bug in conditional command execution that caused it to not

correctly ignore the exit status under certain circumstances.
e.
Added a configure-time check for correctly-working asprintf/snprintf.
f.
Fixed some problems with line number calculation and display when sourcing
a file in an interactive shell.
g.
Fixed a bug that caused the shell to crash when using `declare -A foo=bar'.
h.
Fixed a bug that caused an off-by-one error when calculating the directories
to display with the PROMPT_DIRTRIM option.
2.
Changes to Readline
a.
Fixed a bug that caused applications using the callback interface to not
react to SIGINT (or other signals) until another character arrived.

1.
Changes to Bash
a.
Fixed a bug in mapfile that caused the shell to crash if it was passed the
name of an associative array.
b.
Fixed a bug that caused the shell to incorrectly split case patterns if
they contained characters in $IFS.
c.
Fixed a bug that caused the shell to set $? to the wrong value when using
a construct ending with a variable assignment with set -x enabled and PS4
containing a command substitution.

d.
Fixed a bug that caused the shell to read commands incorrectly if an

expansion error occurred under certain conditions in a user-specified
subshell.
e.
Fixed a bug that caused the shell to set $? incorrectly if a parse error
occurred in an evaluation context ("eval", trap command, dot script, etc.)
f.
Fixed a bug that caused the shell to attempt command substitution

completion within a single-quoted string.
g.
Fixed a bug that caused the shell to insert an extra single quote during
word completion.
h.
Fixed a bug that caused the shell to crash if invoked with the environment
variable EMACS having a null value.
i.
Fixed a bug that caused bash to incorrectly report the presence of new
mail in a `maildir' environment.
j.
Fixed a bug that caused the shell to not recognize a here-document ending
delimiter inside a command substitution.
k.
Fixed a bug that caused the shell to crash when a a dynamic array variable
was assigned a scalar value.
2.
Changes to Readline
3.
a.
The mapfile/readarray builtin no longer stores the commands it invokes via

callbacks in the history list.
b.
There is a new `compat40' shopt option.
c.
The < and > operators to [[ do string comparisons using the current locale
only if the compatibility level is greater than 40 (set to 41 by default).
4.

1.
Changes to Bash
a.
Fixed bugs in the parser involving new parsing of the commands contained
in command substitution when the substitution is read.
b.
Fixed a bug that caused the shell to dump core when performing programmable
completion using a shell function.
c.
Fixed a bug in `mapfile' that caused it to invoke callbacks at the wrong

time.
d.
Fixed a bug that caused the shell to dump core when listing jobs in the
èxit' builtin.
e.
Fixed several bugs encountered when reading subscripts in associative

array assignments and expansions.
f.
Fixed a bug that under some circumstances caused an associative array to

be converted to an indexed array.
g.
Fixed a bug that caused syntax errors and SIGINT interrupts to not set
$? to a value > 128.
h.
Fixed a bug that caused the shell to remove FIFOs associated with process
substitution inside shell functions.
i.
Fixed a bug that caused terminal attributes to not be reset when the
`read' builtin timed out.
j.
Fixed a bug in brace expansion that caused unwanted zero padding of the
expanded terms.
k.
Fixed a bug that prevented the |& construct from working as intended when
used with a simple command with additional redirections.
l.
Fixed a bug with the case statment ;& terminator that caused the shell to
dereference a NULL pointer.
m.
Fixed a bug that caused assignment statements or redirections preceding

a simple command name to inhibit alias expansion.
n. Fixed the behavior of `set -u' to conform to the latest Posix

interpretation:
every expansion of an unset variable except $@ and $* will cause the
shell to exit.
o.
Fixed a bug that caused double-quoted expansions of $* inside word

expansions like ${x#$*} to not expand properly when $IFS is empty.
p.
Fixed a bug that caused traps to set $LINENO to the wrong value when they
execute.
q.
Fixed a bug that caused off-by-one errors when computing history lines in
the `fc' builtin.
r.
Fixed a bug that caused some terminating signals to not exit the shell
quickly enough, forcing the kernel to send the signal (e.g., SIGSEGV)
multiple times.
s.
Fixed a bug that caused the shell to attempt to add empty lines to the
history list when reading here documents.
t.
Made some internal changes that dramatically speeds up sequential indexed

array access.
u.
Fixed a bug that caused the shell to write past the end of a string when
completing a double-quoted string ending in a backslash.
v.
Fixed a bug that caused the shell to replace too many characters when a
pattern match was null in a ${foo//bar} expansion.
w.
Fixed bugs in the expansion of ** that caused duplicate directory names

and the contents of the current directory to be omitted.
x.
Fixed a bug that caused $? to not be set correctly when referencing an

unset variable with set -u and set -e enabled.
y.
Fixed a bug caused by executing an external program from the DEBUG trap
while a pipeline was running. The effect was to disturb the pipeline
state, occasionally causing it to hang.
z.
Fixed a bug that caused the ** glob expansion to dump core if it

encountered an unsearchable directory.
aa. Fixed a bug that caused `command -v' and `command -V' to not honor the
path set by the -p option.
bb. Fixed a bug that caused brace expansion to take place too soon in some
compound array assignments.
cc. Fixed a bug that caused programmable completion functions' changes to
READLINE_POINT to not be reflected back to readline.
dd. Fixed a bug that caused the shell to dump core if a trap was executed
during a shell assignment statement.
ee. Fixed an off-by-one error when computing the number of positional
parameters for the ${@:0:n} expansion.
ff. Fixed a problem with setting COMP_CWORD for programmable completion
functions that could leave it set to -1.
gg. Fixed a bug that caused the ERR trap to be triggered in some cases where
`set -e' would not have caused the shell to exit.
hh. Fixed a bug that caused changes made by `compopt' to not persist past the
completion function in which compopt was executed.
ii. Fixed a bug that caused the list of hostname completions to not be cleared
when HOSTNAME was unset.
jj. Fixed a bug that caused variable expansion in here documents to look in
any temporary environment.
kk. Bash and readline can now convert file names between precomposed and
decomposed Unicode on Mac OS X ("keyboard" and file system forms,
respectively). This affects filename completion (using new
rl_filename_rewrite_hook), globbing, and readline redisplay.
ll. The ERR and EXIT traps now see a non-zero value for $? when a parser
error after set -e has been enabled causes the shell to exit.
mm. Fixed a bug that in brace expansion that caused zero-prefixed terms to
not contain the correct number of digits.
nn. Fixed a bug that caused the shell to free non-allocated memory when
unsetting an associative array which had had a value implicitly assigned
to index "0".
oo. Fixed a memory leak in the ${!prefix@} expansion.
pp. Fixed a bug that caused printf to not correctly report all write errors.
qq. Fixed a bug that caused single and double quotes to act as delimiters
when splitting a command line into words for programmable completion.
rr. Fixed a bug that caused ** globbing that caused **/path/* to match every
directory, not just those matching `path'.
ss. Fixed a bug that caused the shell to dump core when running `help' without
arguments if the terminal width was fewer than 7 characters.
2.
Changes to Readline
a.
The SIGWINCH signal handler now avoids calling the redisplay code if
one arrives while in the middle of redisplay.
b.
Changes to the timeout code to make sure that timeout values greater
than one second are handled better.
c.
Fixed a bug in the redisplay code that was triggered by a prompt

containing invisible characters exactly the width of the screen.
d.
Fixed a bug in the redisplay code encountered when running in horizontal

scroll mode.
e.
Fixed a bug that prevented menu completion from properly completing

filenames.
f.
Fixed a redisplay bug caused by a multibyte character causing a line to

wrap.
g.
Fixed a bug that caused key sequences of two characters to not be

recognized when a longer sequence identical in the first two characters
was bound.
h.
Fixed a bug that caused history expansion to be attempted on $'...'

single-quoted strings.
i.
Fixed a bug that caused incorrect redisplay when the prompt contained
multibyte characters in an ìnvisible' sequence bracketed by \[ and
\].
j.
Fixed a bug that caused history expansion to short-circuit after

encountering a multibyte character.
3.
a.
Here-documents within $(...) command substitutions may once more be

delimited by the closing right paren, instead of requiring a newline.
b.
Bash's file status checks (executable, readable, etc.) now take file
system ACLs into account on file systems that support them.
c.
Bash now passes environment variables with names that are not valid
shell variable names through into the environment passed to child
processes.
d.
The èxecute-unix-command' readline function now attempts to clear and

reuse the current line rather than move to a new one after the command
executes.
e.
`printf -v' can now assign values to array indices.
f.
New `complete -E' and `compopt -E' options that work on the "empty"
completion: completion attempted on an empty command line.
g.
New complete/compgen/compopt -D option to define a `default' completion:

a completion to be invoked on command for which no completion has been
defined. If this function returns 124, programmable completion is
attempted again, allowing a user to dynamically build a set of completions
as completion is attempted by having the default completion function
install individual completion functions each time it is invoked.
h.
When displaying associative arrays, subscripts are now quoted.
i.
Changes to dabbrev-expand to make it more èmacs-like': no space appended

after matches, completions are not sorted, and most recent history entries
are presented first.
j.
The [[ and (( commands are now subject to the setting of `set -e' and the
ERR trap.
k.
The source/. builtin now removes NUL bytes from the file before attempting
to parse commands.
l.
There is a new configuration option (in config-top.h) that forces bash to

forward all history entries to syslog.
m.
A new variable $BASHOPTS to export shell options settable using `shopt' to

child processes.
n.
There is a new confgure option that forces the extglob option to be

enabled by default.
o.
New variable $BASH_XTRACEFD; when set to an integer bash will write xtrace
output to that file descriptor.
p.
If the optional left-hand-side of a redirection is of the form {var}, the

shell assigns the file descriptor used to $var or uses $var as the file
descriptor to move or close, depending on the redirection operator.
q.
The < and > operators to the [[ conditional command now do string
comparison according to the current locale.
r.
Programmable completion now uses the completion for `b' instead of à'
when completion is attempted on a line like: a $(b c.
s.
Force extglob on temporarily when parsing the pattern argument to

the == and != operators to the [[ command, for compatibility.
t.
Changed the behavior of interrupting the wait builtin when a SIGCHLD is

received and a trap on SIGCHLD is set to be Posix-mode only.
u.
The read builtin has a new `-N nchars' option, which reads exactly NCHARS
characters, ignoring delimiters like newline.
4.
a.
New bindable function: menu-complete-backward.
b.
In the vi insertion keymap, C-n is now bound to menu-complete by default,

and C-p to menu-complete-backward.
c.
When in vi command mode, repeatedly hitting ESC now does nothing, even
when ESC introduces a bound key sequence. This is closer to how
historical vi behaves.
d.
New bindable function: skip-csi-sequence. Can be used as a default to

consume key sequences generated by keys like Home and End without having
to bind all keys.
e.
New application-settable function: rl_filename_rewrite_hook. Can be used

to rewite or modify filenames read from the file system before they are
compared to the word to be completed.
f.
New bindable variable: skip-completed-text, active when completing in the

middle of a word. If enabled, it means that characters in the completion
that match characters in the remainder of the word are "skipped" rather
than inserted into the line.
g.
The pre-readline-6.0 version of menu completion is available as

"old-menu-complete" for users who do not like the readline-6.0 version.
h.
New bindable variable: echo-control-characters.
If enabled, and the
tty ECHOCTL bit is set, controls the echoing of characters corresponding

to keyboard-generated signals.
i.
New bindable variable: enable-meta-key. Controls whether or not readline

sends the smm/rmm sequences if the terminal indicates it has a meta key
that enables eight-bit characters.

1.
Changes to Bash
a.
Changed the message printed when setlocale(3) fails to only include the
strerror error text if the call changes errno.
b.
Changed trap command execution to reset the line number before running a
trap (except DEBUG and RETURN traps).
c.
Fixed behavior of case-modifiying word expansions to not work on

individual words within a variable's value.
d.
Fixed a bug that caused mapfile to not be interruptible when run in an

interactive shell.
e.
Fixed a bug that caused mapfile to not run callbacks for the first line
read.
f.
Fixed a bug that caused mapfile to not honor EOF typed in an interactive
shell.
g.
Fixed the coprocess reaping code to not run straight from a signal handler.
h.
Fixed a bug that caused printf -b to ignore the first % conversion specifier
in the format string on 64-bit systems.
i.
Fixed a bug that caused incorrect word splitting when `:', `=', or `~'
appeared in $IFS.
j.
Fixed a bug that caused data corruption in the programmable completion code
when a shell function called from a completion aborted execution.
k.
Fixed a bug that caused the CPU usage reported by the `time' builtin to be
capped at 100%.
l.
Changed behavior of shell when -e option is in effect to reflect consensus

of Posix shell standardization working group.
m.
Fixed a bug introduced in bash-4.0-alpha that caused redirections to not

be displayed by `type' or `declare' when appearing in functions under
certain circumstances.
2.
Changes to Readline
a.
Fixed a bug that caused !(...) extended glob patterns to inhibit later
history expansion.
b.
Reworked the signal handling to avoid calling disallowed functions from a

signal handler.
3.
a. `readarray' is now a synonym for `mapfile'.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------
This document details the changes between this version, bash-4.0-rc1,

and the previous version, bash-4.0-beta2.
1.
Changes to Bash
a.
Fixed a bug that caused parsing errors when a $()-style command

substitution was follwed immediately by a quoted newline.
b.
Fixed a bug that caused extended shell globbing patterns beginning with
`*(' to not work when used with pattern substitution word expansions.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------This document details the changes between this version, bash-4.0-beta2,

1.
Changes to Bash
a.
Fixed a bug that caused failed word expansions to set $? but not
PIPESTATUS.
b.
Changed filename completion to quote the tilde in a filename with a

leading tilde that exists in the current directory.
c.
Fixed a bug that caused a file descriptor leak when performing

redirections attached to a compound command.
d.
Fixed a bug that caused expansions of $@ and $* to not exit the shell if
the -u option was enabled and there were no posititional parameters.
e.
Fixed a bug that resulted in bash not terminating immediately if a

terminating signal was received while performing output.
f.
Fixed a bug that caused the shell to crash after creating 256 process
substitutions during word completion.
2.
Changes to Readline
a.
Fixed a bug that caused redisplay errors when using prompts with invisible
characters and numeric arguments to a command in a multibyte locale.
b.
Fixed a bug that caused redisplay errors when using prompts with invisible
characters spanning more than two physical screen lines.

1.
Changes to Bash
a.
Fixed a typo that caused a variable to be used before initialization

while parsing Posix-style command substitutions.
b.
Fixed a bug that caused stray ^? when the expansion of a parameter used
as part of a pattern removal expansion is empty, but part of a nonempty string.
c.
Fixed a bug that could cause strings not converted to numbers by strtol
to be treated as if the conversion had been successful.
d.
The `return' builtin now accepts no options and requires a `--' before
a negative return value, as Posix requires.
e.
Fixed a bug that caused local variables to be created with the empty
string for a value rather than no value.
f.
Changed behavior so the shell now acts as if it received an interrupt

when a pipeline is killed by SIGINT while executing a list.
g.
Fixed a bug that caused `declare var' and `typeset var' to initialize
`var' to the empty string.
h.
Changed `bind' builtin to print a warning but proceed if invoked when

line editing is not active.
i.
Fixed a bug that caused the shell to exit when the èrrexit' option is
set and a command in a pipeline returns a non-zero exit status.
j.
Fixed a bug that caused the shell to not run the exit trap in a command
run with `bash -c' under some circumstances.
k.
Fixed a bug that caused parser errors to occasionally not set $? when
running commands with èval'.
l.
Fixed a bug that caused stray control characters when evaluating compound
array assignments containing $'\x7f' escapes.
m.
Fixed a bug that caused redirections involving file descriptor 10 as the

target to behave incorrectly.
n.
Fixed a bug that could cause memory to be freed multiple times when
assigning to COMP_WORDBREAKS.
o.
Fixed a bug that could cause NULL pointer dereferences when COMP_WORDBREAKS
was unset.
2.
Changes to Readline
3.
a.
A value of 0 for the -t option to `read' now returns success if there is

input available to be read from the specified file descriptor.
b.
CDPATH and GLOBIGNORE are ignored when the shell is running in privileged
mode.
c.
New bindable readline functions shell-forward-word and shell-backward-word,

which move forward and backward words delimited by shell metacharacters
and honor shell quoting.
d.
New bindable readline functions shell-backward-kill-word and shell-kill-word

which kill words backward and forward, but use the same word boundaries
as shell-forward-word and shell-backward-word.
4.
a.
If the kernel supports it, readline displays special characters

corresponding to a keyboard-generated signal when the signal is received.

1.
Changes to Bash
a.
Fixed several bugs in old-style `` command substitution parsing, including

comment parsing and quoted string handling.
b.
Fixed problems parsing arguments to the [[ command's =~ regular expression
matching operator:
metacharacter and whitespace parsing.
c.
Fixed a bug that caused the shell to inappropriately reuse high-numbered

file descriptors it used internally.
d.
Fixed a bug in pattern replacement word expansions that caused a `/' as

the first character of an expanded pattern to be mistaken for a global
replacement specifier.
e.
Fixed several problems with the asprintf and snprintf replacement functions
that caused hangs and crashes.
f.
Fixed a bug in the calculation of the current and previous job that caused
it to refer to incorrect jobs.
g.
Fixed a bug in the check for the validity of a hashed command pathname that
caused unnecessary hash table deletions and additions.
h.
Fixed a bug that caused child processes to inherit the wrong value for $!.
i.
Fixed a bug that caused `.' to fail to read and execute commands from nonregular files such as devices or named pipes.
j.
Fixed a bug in printf formatting for the %x and %X expansions that occurred
on some systems.
k.
Fixed a bug that caused the shell to crash when creating temporary files if
$TMPDIR named a non-writable directory.
l.
Fixed a bug that caused the shell to ignore $TMPDIR when creating temporary
files under some circumstances.
m.
Fixed a bug that caused named pipes created by process substitution to not
be cleaned up.
n.
Fixed a bug that caused HISTTIMEFORMAT to not be honored when it appeared

in the initial shell environment.
o.
Fixed several bugs in the expansion of $* and $@ (quoted and unquoted)

when IFS is null or contains non-whitespace characters; the same changes
apply to arrays subscripted with * or @.
p.
Fixed several problems with pattern substitution expansions on the

positional parameters and arrays subscripted with * or @ that occurred
when $IFS was set to the empty string.
q.
Made a change to the default locale initialization code that should

result in better behavior from the locale-aware library functions.
r.
Fixed a bug that caused compacting the jobs list to drop jobs.
s.
Fixed a bug that caused jumps back to the top-level processing loop from
a builtin command to leave the shell in an inconsistent state.
t.
Fixed a bug that caused characters that would be escaped internally to be

doubled when escaped with a backslash.
u.
Fixed the initialization of mailboxes to not cause maildirs to be read

(and stat(2) called for every message file) at shell startup.
v.
Fixed a bug that caused the shell to not display $PS2 when the read builtin
reads a line continued with a backslash.
w.
Fixed a bug that caused errors in word splitting when $IFS contained
characters used for internal quoting.

x.
Fixed bugs that caused problems with output from shell builtins not being
completely displayed on some systems.
y.
Fixed a bug that caused output to be lost when a redirection is acting on

the shell's output file descriptor.
z.
Fixed bugs caused by shell builtins not checking for all write errors.
aa. Fixed a problem that caused the shell to dump core if expansions on the
pattern passed to the pattern removal word expansions resulted in expansion
errors.
bb. Fixed a bug that caused bash to loop infinitely after creating and
waiting for 4096 jobs.
cc. Fixed a bug that caused bash to lose the status of a background job under
certain circumstances.
dd. Fixed a bug that caused bash to not look in the temporary environment
when performing variable lookup under certain circumstances.
ee. Fixed a bug that caused bash to close file descriptors greater than 10
when they were used in redirections.
ff. Fixed a problem that caused the shell to attempt to read from the standard
input when called as `bash -i script'.
gg. Fixed a memory leak and variable initialization problems when the -v option
was supplied to `printf' that could cause incorrect results.
hh. Fixed a bug that caused the `read' builtin to count bytes when the -n option
was supplied, rather than (possibly multibyte) characters.
ii. Fixed a bug when displaying a function due to not converting the function
to an external form.
jj. Changed job control initialization to ensure that the shell has a tty
as its controlling terminal before enabling job control.
kk. Fixed a bug with the `test' builtin that caused it to misinterpret
arguments beginning with `-' but containing more than one character.
ll. Fixed bug that could cause the shell to dump core in certain cases where
a command sets the SIGINT disposition to the default.
mm. Fixed a bug in the pattern replacement (affecting both word expansion
and the `fc' builtin) that occurred when the pattern and replacement
strings were empty.
nn. Fixed a bug that caused an arithmetic evaluation error to disable all
further evaluation.
oo. Fixed a bug in pathname expansion that caused it to interpret backslashes
in the pathname as quoting characters.
pp. Fixed a bug in the replacement getcwd() implementation that could cause
memory to be overwritten.
qq. When in Posix mode, the ùlimit' builtin now uses a block size of 512 for
the `-c' and `-f' options.
rr. Brace expansion now allows process substitutions to pass through unchanged.
ss. Fixed a problem in the command name completion code to avoid quoting
escaped special characters twice when the command name begins with a tilde.
tt. Fixed a problem in the printf builtin that resulted in single-byte
output for the "'" escape, even when using multibyte characters.
uu. Fixed a bug that caused the failure exit status to be lost when redirections
attached to a compound command failed.
vv. Fixed a bug that caused the internal random number generator to not be
re-seeded correctly when creating a subshell.
ww. Fixed a bug that could cause the bash replacement getcwd to overwrite
memory.
xx. Fixed a bug that caused the shell to not receive SIGINT if it was sent
while the shell was waiting for a command substitution to terminate, and
make sure the exit status is correct when it does.
yy. Fixed a bug that resulted in the second and subsequent children spawned
by a shell begun to run a command substitution being placed into the
wrong process group.
zz. Fixed a bug that caused the results of successful tilde expansion to be
subject to pathname expansion and word splitting.
aaa. Fixed a bug that could cause the shell to hang if it encountered an
error that caused it to jump back to the top processing loop during a
command substitution or èval' command.
bbb. Fixed a bug that caused the `read' builtin to use the tty's attributes
instead of those of the file descriptor passed with the -u option when
processing the -n and -d options.
ccc. Fixed a bug that caused incorrect expansion of ${array[@]:foo} if the
first character of $IFS was not whitespace.
ddd. Fixed a bug that occurred when scanning for the ending delimiter of a
${parameter/pat/sub} expansion.
eee. Fixed a bug that caused the shell to inappropriately expand command
substitutions in words when expanding directory names for completion.
fff. Fixed a bug that caused the `fc' builtin to look too far back in the
history list under certain circumstances.
ggg. Fixed a bug that caused a shell running in Posix mode to search $PWD for
a file specified as an argument to source/. when the file was not found
in $PATH.
hhh. Fixed a bug that caused the shell to modify the case of a command word
found via command completion when the shell was performing caseinsensitive completion.
iii. Fixed a bug that caused the shell to search $PATH for an argument to
source/. even when it contained a `/'.
jjj. Fixed a bug that caused brace expansion to misorder expansions when the
locale did not have a collating order like aAbBcC...zZ.
kkk. Fixed a bug that did not allow `set +o history' to have any effect when
run in a startup file or from a sourced file.
lll. Fixed a bug with the precedence of the ?: conditional arithmetic operator.
mmm. Fixed a bug that caused side effects of temporary variable assignments
to persist in the shell environment.
nnn. Fixed a bug that caused the terminal to be left in non-canonical mode
when using editing commands that invoke the an editor on the current
command line.
ooo. Fixed a bug that caused globbing characters and characters in $IFS to not
be quoted appropriately when displaying assignment statements.
ppp. Fixed a bug that caused the `-e' option to be inherited when sourcing a
file or evaluating a command with èval' even if the return value of the
command was supposed to be ignored.
qqq. Fixed a bug that caused the shell to attempt to created variables with
invalid names if such names appeared in the initial environment.
rrr. Fixed a bug with quote removal in strings where the final character is a
backslash.
sss. Fixed a bug that caused the effects of special variables to persist even
when the variables were unset as part of the shell reinitializing itself
to execute a shell script.
ttt. Fixed a bug that caused the history to not be saved after `history -c' or
`history -d' was executed until a sufficient number of commands had been
saved to the history.
uuu. Bash now parses command substitutions according to Posix rules: parsing
the command contained in $() to find the closing delimiter.
vvv. Fixed a bug that caused traps on SIGCHLD set in a SIGCHLD handler to
not persist.
www. Fixed a bug that didn't allow SIGCHLD to interrupt the `wait' builtin
as Posix specifies.
xxx. Invalid numeric arguments to shell builtins no longer cause the shell to
short-circuit any executing compound command.
yyy. Fixed a bug that caused the exit status to be lost when `break' was
used to short-circuit a loop's execution.
zzz. Fixed a bug that caused stray ^? characters to be left in expansions of
"${array[*]}".
aaaa. Bash now prints better error messages for here documents terminated by
EOF and for identifying the incorrect token in an invalid arithmetic
expression.
bbbb. Fixed a bug in the variable length word expansion that caused it to
incorrectly calculate the number of multibyte characters.
cccc. Fixed a race condition that could result in the top-level shell setting
the terminal's process group to an incorrect value if the process
group was changed by a child of a child of the shell.
dddd. Fixed a bug that caused here documents belonging to commands within a
compound command to be displayed in a syntactially-incorrect form, which
prevented them from being re-read as input.
eeee. The shell displays more warnings about failures to set the locale.
ffff. Fixed a bug that caused the body of a here-document to not be saved to
the history list.
gggg. Fixed a bug that caused configure to incorrectly conclude that FreeBSD
had /dev/fd available, resulting in problems with process substitution.
2.
Changes to Readline
a.
Fixed a number of redisplay errors in environments supporting multibyte

characters.
b.
Fixed bugs in vi command mode that caused motion commands to inappropriately

set the mark.
c.
When using the arrow keys in vi insertion mode, readline allows movement
beyond the current end of the line (unlike command mode).
d.
Fixed bugs that caused readline to loop when the terminal has been taken
away and reads return -1/EIO.
e.
Fixed bugs in redisplay occurring when displaying prompts containing

invisible characters.
f.
Fixed a bug that caused the completion append character to not be reset to
the default after an application-specified completion function changed it.
g.
Fixed a problem that caused incorrect positioning of the cursor while in

emacs editing mode when moving forward at the end of a line while using
a locale supporting multibyte characters.
h.
Fixed an off-by-one error that caused readline to drop every 511th

character of buffered input.
i.
Fixed a bug that resulted in SIGTERM not being caught or cleaned up.
j.
Fixed redisplay bugs caused by multiline prompts with invisible characters

or no characters following the final newline.
k.
Fixed redisplay bug caused by prompts consisting solely of invisible

characters.
l.
Fixed a bug in the code that buffers characters received very quickly in
succession which caused characters to be dropped.
m.
Fixed a bug that caused readline to reference uninitialized data structures

if it received a SIGWINCH before completing initialzation.
n.
Fixed a bug that caused the vi-mode `last command' to be set incorrectly
and therefore unrepeatable.
o.
Fixed a bug that caused readline to disable echoing when it was being used
with an output file descriptor that was not a terminal.
p.
Readline now blocks SIGINT while manipulating internal data structures

during redisplay.
q.
Fixed a bug in redisplay that caused readline to segfault when pasting a

very long line (over 130,000 characters).
r.
Fixed bugs in redisplay when using prompts with no visible printing

characters.
3.
a.
When using substring expansion on the positional parameters, a starting

index of 0 now causes $0 to be prefixed to the list.
b.
The `help' builtin now prints its columns with entries sorted vertically
rather than horizontally.
c.
There is a new variable, $BASHPID, which always returns the process id of

the current shell.
d.
There is a new àutocd' option that, when enabled, causes bash to attempt
to `cd' to a directory name that is supplied as the first word of a
simple command.
e.
There is a new `checkjobs' option that causes the shell to check for and
report any running or stopped jobs at exit.
f.
The programmable completion code exports a new COMP_TYPE variable, set to

a character describing the type of completion being attempted.
g.
The programmable completion code exports a new COMP_KEY variable, set to

the character that caused the completion to be invoked (e.g., TAB).
h.
If creation of a child process fails due to insufficient resources, bash

will try again several times before reporting failure.
i.
The programmable completion code now uses the same set of characters as
readline when breaking the command line into a list of words.
j.
The block multiplier for the ulimit -c and -f options is now 512 when in
Posix mode, as Posix specifies.
k.
Changed the behavior of the read builtin to save any partial input received
in the specified variable when the read builtin times out. This also
results in variables specified as arguments to read to be set to the empty
string when there is no input available. When the read builtin times out,
it returns an exit status greater than 128.
l.
The shell now has the notion of a `compatibility level', controlled by

new variables settable by `shopt'. Setting this variable currently
restores the bash-3.1 behavior when processing quoted strings on the rhs
of the `=~' operator to the `[[' command.
m.
The ùlimit' builtin now has new -b (socket buffer size) and -T (number
of threads) options.
n.
The -p option to `declare' now displays all variable values and attributes
(or function values and attributes if used with -f).
o.
There is a new `compopt' builtin that allows completion functions to modify

completion options for existing completions or the completion currently
being executed.
p.
The `read' builtin has a new -i option which inserts text into the reply
buffer when using readline.
q.
A new `-E' option to the complete builtin allows control of the default
behavior for completion on an empty line.
r.
There is now limited support for completing command name words containing
globbing characters.
s.
Changed format of internal help documentation for all builtins to roughly

follow man page format.
t.
The `help' builtin now has a new -d option, to display a short description,
and a -m option, to print help information in a man page-like format.
u.
There is a new `mapfile' builtin to populate an array with lines from a

given file.
v.
If a command is not found, the shell attempts to execute a shell function

named `command_not_found_handle', supplying the command words as the
function arguments.
w.
There is a new shell option: `globstar'. When enabled, the globbing code
treats `**' specially -- it matches all directories (and files within
them, when appropriate) recursively.
x.
There is a new shell option: `dirspell'. When enabled, the filename

completion code performs spelling correction on directory names during
completion.
y.
The `-t' option to the `read' builtin now supports fractional timeout
values.
z.
Brace expansion now allows zero-padding of expanded numeric values and

will add the proper number of zeroes to make sure all values contain the
same number of digits.
aa. There is a new bash-specific bindable readline function: `dabbrev-expand'.

It uses menu completion on a set of words taken from the history list.
bb. The command assigned to a key sequence with `bind -x' now sets two new
variables in the environment of the executed command: READLINE_LINE_BUFFER
and READLINE_POINT. The command can change the current readline line
and cursor position by modifying READLINE_LINE_BUFFER and READLINE_POINT,
respectively.
cc. There is a new &>> redirection operator, which appends the standard output
and standard error to the named file.
dd. The parser now understands `|&' as a synonym for `2>&1 |', which redirects
the standard error for a command through a pipe.
ee. The new `;&' case statement action list terminator causes execution to
continue with the action associated with the next pattern in the
statement rather than terminating the command.
ff. The new `;;&' case statement action list terminator causes the shell to
test the next set of patterns after completing execution of the current
action, rather than terminating the command.
gg. The shell understands a new variable: PROMPT_DIRTRIM. When set to an
integer value greater than zero, prompt expansion of \w and \W will
retain only that number of trailing pathname components and replace
the intervening characters with `...'.
hh. There are new case-modifying word expansions: uppercase (^[^]) and
lowercase (,[,]). They can work on either the first character or
array element, or globally. They accept an optional shell pattern
that determines which characters to modify. There is an optionallyconfigured feature to include capitalization operators.
ii. The shell provides associative array variables, with the appropriate
support to create, delete, assign values to, and expand them.
jj. The `declare' builtin now has new -l (convert value to lowercase upon
assignment) and -u (convert value to uppercase upon assignment) options.

There is an optionally-configurable -c option to capitalize a value at
assignment.
kk. There is a new `coproc' reserved word that specifies a coprocess: an
asynchronous command run with two pipes connected to the creating shell.
Coprocs can be named. The input and output file descriptors and the
PID of the coprocess are available to the calling shell in variables
with coproc-specific names.
4.
a.
A new variable, rl_sort_completion_matches; allows applications to inhibit

match list sorting (but beware: some things don't work right if
applications do this).
b.
A new variable, rl_completion_invoking_key; allows applications to discover

the key that invoked rl_complete or rl_menu_complete.
c.
The functions rl_block_sigint and rl_release_sigint are now public and

available to calling applications who want to protect critical sections
(like redisplay).
d.
The functions rl_save_state and rl_restore_state are now public and

available to calling applications; documented rest of readline's state
flag values.
e.
A new user-settable variable, `history-size', allows setting the maximum

number of entries in the history list.
f.
There is a new implementation of menu completion, with several improvements

over the old; the most notable improvement is a better `completions
browsing' mode.
g.
The menu completion code now uses the rl_menu_completion_entry_function

variable, allowing applications to provide their own menu completion
generators.
h.
There is support for replacing a prefix of a pathname with a `...' when

displaying possible completions. This is controllable by setting the
`completion-prefix-display-length' variable. Matches with a common prefix
longer than this value have the common prefix replaced with `...'.
i.
There is a new `revert-all-at-newline' variable. If enabled, readline will

undo all outstanding changes to all history lines when àccept-line' is
executed.

1.
Changes to Bash
a.
Fixed a bug that caused the temporary environment passed to a command to

affect the shell's environment under certain circumstances.
b.
Fixed a bug in the printf builtin that caused the %q format specifier to
ignore empty string arguments.
c.
Improved multibyte character environment detection at configuration time.
d.
Fixed a bug in the read builtin that left spurious escape characters in the
input after processing backslashes when assigning to an array variable.
2.
Changes to Readline
a.
Fixed a redisplay bug that occurred in multibyte-capable locales when the

prompt was one character longer than the screen width.
1.
Changes to Bash
a.
Changed the lexical analyzer to treat locale-specific blank characters as

white space.
b.
Fixed a bug in command printing to avoid confusion between redirections and

process substitution.
c.
Fixed problems with cross-compiling originating from inherited environment

variables.
d.
Added write error reporting to printf builtin.
e.
Fixed a bug in the variable expansion code that could cause a core dump in
a multi-byte locale.
f.
Fixed a bug that caused substring expansion of a null string to return

incorrect results.
g.
BASH_COMMAND now retains its previous value while executing commands as the
result of a trap, as the documentation states.
2.
Changes to Readline
a.
Fixed a bug with prompt redisplay in a multi-byte locale to avoid redrawing

the prompt and input line multiple times.
b.
Fixed history expansion to not be confused by here-string redirection.
c.
Readline no longer treats read errors by converting them to newlines, as

it does with EOF. This caused partial lines to be returned from readline().

1.
Changes to Bash
a.
Fixed a source bug that caused the minimal configuration to not compile.
b.
Fixed memory leaks in error handling for the `read' builtin.
c.
Changed the [[ and (( compound commands to set PIPESTATUS with their exit
status.
d.
Fixed some parsing problems with compound array assignments.
e.
Added additional configuration changes for: NetBSD (incomplete multibyte

character support)
f.
Fixed two bugs with local array variable creation when shadowing a variable
of the same name from a previous context.
g.
Fixed the `read' builtin to restore the correct set of completion functions
if a timeout occurs.
h.
Added code to defer the initialization of HISTSIZE (and its stifling of the
history list) until the history file is loaded, allowing a startup file to
override the default value.
i.
Tightened up the arithmetic expression parsing to produce better error

messages when presented with invalid operators.
j.
Fixed the cross-compilation support to build the signal list at shell

invocation rather than compile time if cross-compiling.
k.
Fixed multibyte support for non-gcc compilers (or compilers that do not
allow automatic array variable sizing based on a non-constant value).
l.
Several fixes to the code that manages the list of terminated jobs and
their exit statuses, and the list of active and recently-terminated jobs
to avoid pid aliasing/wraparound and allocation errors.
m.
Fixed a problem that allowed scripts to die due to SIGINT while waiting
for children, even when started in the background or otherwise ignoring
SIGINT.
n.
Fixed a bug that caused shells invoked as -/bin/bash from not being
recognized as login shells.
o.
Fixed a problem that caused shells in the background to give the terminal
to a process group other than the foreground shell process group.
p.
Fixed a problem with extracting the `varname' in ${#varname}.
q.
Fixed the code that handles SIGQUIT to not exit immediately -- thereby
calling functions that may not be called in a signal handler context -but set a flag and exit afterward (like SIGINT).
r.
Changed the brace expansion code to skip over braces that don't begin a
valid matched brace expansion construct.
s.
Fixed `typeset' and `declare' to not require that their shell function
operands to be valid shell identifiers.
t.
Changed `test' to use access(2) with a temporary uid/euid swap when testing
file attributes and running setuid, and access(2) in most other cases.
u.
Changed completion code to not attempt command name completion on a line

consisting solely of whitespace when no_empty_command_completion is set.
v.
The `hash' builtin now prints nothing in posix mode when the hash table is
empty, and prints a message to that effect to stdout instead of stderr
when not in posix mode.
w.
Fixed a bug in the extended pattern matching code that caused it to fail to
match periods with certain patterns.
x.
Fixed a bug that caused the shell to dump core when performing filename
generation in directories with thousands of files.
y.
Returned to the original Bourne shell rules for parsing ``:

parsing of embedded quoted strings or ${...} constructs.
z.
The inheritence of the DEBUG, RETURN, and ERR traps is now dependent only
on the settings of the `functrace' and èrrtrace' shell options, rather
than whether or not the shell is in debugging mode.
no recursive
aa. Fixed a problem with $HOME being converted to ~ in the expansion of

members of the DIRSTACK array.
bb. Fixed a problem with quoted arguments to arithmetic expansions in certain

constructs.
cc. The command word completion code now no longer returns matching directories
while searching $PATH.
dd. Fixed a bug with zero-padding and precision handling in snprintf()
replacement.
ee. Fixed a bug that caused the command substitution code not to take embedded
shell comments into account.
ff. Fixed a bug that caused $((...);(...)) to be misinterpreted as an
arithmetic substitution.
gg. Fixed a bug in the prompt expansion code that inappropriately added a
\001 before a \002 under certain circumstances.
hh. Fixed a bug that caused ùnset LANG' to not properly reset the locale
(previous versions would set the locale back to what it was when bash
was started rather than the system's "native" locale).
ii. Fixed a bug that could cause file descriptors > 10 to not be closed even
when closed explicitly by a script.
jj. Fixed a bug that caused single quotes to be stripped from ANSI-C quoting
inside double-quoted command substitutions.
kk. Fixed a bug that could cause core dumps when `return' was executed as the
last element of a pipeline inside a shell function.
ll. Fixed a bug that caused DEBUG trap strings to overwrite commands stored in
the jobs list.
2.
Changes to Readline
a.
Fixed a problem that caused segmentation faults when using readline in

callback mode and typing consecutive DEL characters on an empty line.
b.
Fixed several redisplay problems with multibyte characters, all having to

do with the different code paths and variable meanings between single-byte
and multibyte character redisplay.
c.
Fixed a problem with key sequence translation when presented with the
sequence \M-\C-x.
d.
Fixed a problem that prevented the à' command in vi mode from being
undone and redone properly.
e.
Fixed a problem that prevented empty inserts in vi mode from being undone
properly.
f.
Fixed a problem that caused readline to initialize with an incorrect idea

of whether or not the terminal can autowrap.
g.
Fixed output of key bindings (like bash `bind -p') to honor the setting of
convert-meta and use \e where appropriate.
h.
Changed the default filename completion function to call the filename

dequoting function if the directory completion hook isn't set. This means
that any directory completion hooks need to dequote the directory name,
since application-specific hooks need to know how the word was quoted,
even if no other changes are made.
i.
Fixed a bug with creating the prompt for a non-interactive search string
when there are non-printing characters in the primary prompt.
j.
Fixed a bug that caused prompts with invisible characters to be redrawn

multiple times in a multibyte locale.
k.
Fixed a bug that could cause the key sequence scanning code to return the
wrong function.
l.
Fixed a problem with the callback interface that caused it to fail when
using multi-character keyboard macros.
m.
Fixed a bug that could cause a core dump when an edited history entry was
re-executed under certain conditions.
n.
Fixed a bug that caused readline to reference freed memory when attmpting
to display a portion of the prompt.
3.
a.
Changed the parameter pattern replacement functions to not anchor the

pattern at the beginning of the string if doing global replacement - that
combination doesn't make any sense.
b.
When running in `word expansion only' mode (--wordexp option), inhibit

process substitution.
c.
Loadable builtins now work on MacOS X 10.[34].
d.
Shells running in posix mode no longer set $HOME, as POSIX requires.
e.
The code that checks for binary files being executed as shell scripts now
checks only for NUL rather than any non-printing character.
f.
Quoting the string argument to the [[ command's =~ operator now forces

string matching, as with the other pattern-matching operators.
4.
a.
Calling applications can now set the keyboard timeout to 0, allowing

poll-like behavior.
b.
The value of SYS_INPUTRC (configurable at compilation time) is now used as

the default last-ditch startup file.
c.
The history file reading functions now allow windows-like \r\n line
terminators.

1.
Changes to Readline
a.
Several changes to the multibyte redisplay code to fix problems with

prompts containing invisible characters.

1.
Changes to Bash
a.
Fixed a bug that caused a DEBUG trap to overwrite a command string that's
eventually attached to a background job.
b.
Changed some code so that filenames with leading tildes with spaces in the
name aren't tilde-expanded by the bash completion code.
c.
Fixed a bug that caused the pushd builtin to fail to change to

directories with leading `-'.
d.
Fixed a small memory leak in the programmable completion code.
2.
Changes to Readline
a.
Fixed a redisplay bug caused by moving the cursor vertically to a line

with invisible characters in the prompt in a multibyte locale.
b.
Fixed a bug that could cause the terminal special chars to be bound in the
wrong keymap in vi mode.
3.
a.
If compiled for strict POSIX conformance, LINES and COLUMNS may now
override the true terminal size.
4.
a.
A new external application-controllable variable that allows the LINES

and COLUMNS environment variables to set the window size regardless of
what the kernel returns.

1.
Changes to Bash
a.
Fixed a bug that could cause core dumps due to accessing the current
pipeline while in the middle of modifying it.
b.
Fixed a bug that caused pathnames with backslashes still quoting characters
to be passed to opendir().
c.
Command word completion now obeys the setting of completion-ignore-case.
d.
Fixed a problem with redirection that caused file descriptors greater than
2 to be inappropriately marked as close-on-exec.
e.
In Posix mode, after `wait' is called to wait for a particular process

explicitly, that process is removed from the list of processes known to
the shell, and subsequent attempts to wait for it return errors.
f.
Fixed a bug that caused extended pattern matching to incorrectly scan

backslash-escaped pattern characters.
g.
Fixed a synchronization problem that could cause core dumps when handling
a SIGWINCH.
h.
Fixed a bug that caused an unmatched backquote to be accepted without an

error when processing here documents.
i.
Fixed a small memory leak in the `cd' builtin.
j.
Fix for MacOS X so it gets the values for the HOSTTYPE, MACHTYPE, and
OSTYPE variables at build time, to support universal binaries.
k.
Fixed a bug that could cause an exit trap to return the exit status of
the trap command rather than the status as it was before the trap was
run as the shell's exit status.
2.
3.
Changes to Readline
a.
Fixed a bug that caused reversing the incremental search direction to

not work correctly.
b.
Fixed the vi-mode Ù' command to only undo up to the first time insert mode
was entered, as Posix specifies.
c.
Fixed a bug in the vi-mode `r' command that left the cursor in the wrong
place.
4.
a.
New application-callable auxiliary function, rl_variable_value, returns

a string corresponding to a readline variable's value.
b.
When parsing inputrc files and variable binding commands, the parser
strips trailing whitespace from values assigned to boolean variables
before checking them.

and the previous version, bash-3.1-alpha1.
1.
Changes to Bash
a.
Added some system-specific signal names.
b.
Fixed a typo in the ulimit builtin to make `x' the right option to
maniuplate the limit on file locks.
c.
Fixed a problem with using += to append to index 0 of an array variable

when not using subscript syntax.
d.
A few changes to configure.in to remove calls to obsolete or outdated

macros.
e.
Make sure changes to variables bash handles specially (e.g., LC_ALL) are
made when the variable is set in the temporary environment to a command.
f.
Make sure changes to variables bash handles specially (e.g., LC_ALL) are
made when the variable is modified using `printf -v'.
g.
The export environment is now remade on cygwin when HOME is changed, so

DLLs bash is linked against pick up the new value. This fixes problems
with tilde expansion when linking against and already-installed readline.
h.
Small fix to the logic for performing tilde expansion in posix mode, so
expansion on the right-hand side of an assignment statement takes place.
i.
Fixed a bug that prevented redirections associated with a shell function

from being executed when in a subshell.
j.
Fixed `source' and `.' builtins to not require an executable file when
searching $PATH for a file to source.
k.
Fixed a bug that caused incorrect word splitting in a function when IFS
was declared local, then unset.
l.
Fixed a problem with the `kill' builtin that prevented sending signals
to a process group under certain circumstances when providing a pid < 0.
m.
When in POSIX mode, `pwd' now checks that the value it prints is the same
directory as `.', even when displaying $PWD.
n.
Fixed a problem with the `read' builtin when reading a script from standard
input and reading data from the same file.
o.
Fixed a problem with the `type' and `command' builtins that caused absolute
pathnames to be displayed incorrectly.
p.
Some changes to the `bg' builtin for POSIX conformance.
q.
The `fc' builtin now removes the `fc' command that caused it to invoke an
editor on specified history entries from the history entirely, rather than
simply ignoring it.
r.
When in POSIX mode, the `v' command in vi editing mode simply invokes vi
on the current command, rather than checking $FCEDIT and $EDITOR.
s.
Fixed a small memory leak in the pathname canonicalization code.
t.
Fixed a bug that caused the expanded value of a $'...' string to be

incorrectly re-quoted if it occurred within a double-quoted ${...}
parameter expansion.
u. Restored default emacs-mode key binding of M-TAB to dynamic-completehistory.

v.
Fixed a bug that caused core dumps when interrupting loops running builtins
on some systems.
w.
Make sure that some of the functions bash provides replacements for are
not cpp defines.
x.
The code that scans embedded commands for the parser (`...` and $(...)) is
now more aware of embedded comments and their effect on quoted strings.
y.
Changed the `-n' option to the `history' builtin to not reset the number of
history lines read in the current session after reading the new lines from
the history file if the history is being appended when it is written to
the file, since the appending takes care of the problem that the adjustment
was intended to solve.
z.
Improved the error message displayed when a shell script fails to execute
because the environment and size of command line arguments are too large.
aa. A small fix to make sure that $HISTCMD is evaluated whenever the shell is
saving commands to the history list, not just when HISTSIZE is defined.
2.
Changes to Readline
a.
The `change-case' command now correctly changes the case of multibyte

characters.
b.
Changes to the shared library construction scripts to deal with Windows

DLL naming conventions for Cygwin.
c.
Fixed the redisplay code to avoid core dumps resulting from a poorly-timed
SIGWINCH.
d.
Fixed the non-incremental search code in vi mode to dispose of any current

undo list when copying a line from the history into the current editing
buffer.
e.
The variable assignment code now ignores whitespace at the end of lines
when assigning to boolean variables.
f.
The `C-w' binding in incremental search now understands multibyte

characters.
3.
a.
A new configuration option, `--enable-strict-posix-default', which will

build bash to be POSIX conforming by default.
4.
a.
If the rl_completion_query_items is set to a value < 0, readline never

asks the user whether or not to view the possible completions.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------This document details the changes between this version, bash-3.1-alpha1,

1.
Changes to Bash
a.
Fixed a bug that caused bash to crash if referencing an unset local array.
b.
Fixed a problem that caused tilde expansion to not be performed before

attempting globbing word completion.
c.
Fixed an incompatibility so that a first argument to trap that's a valid

signal number will be trated as a signal rather than a command to execute.
d.
Fixed ${#word} expansion to correctly compute the length of a string

containing multibyte characters.
e.
Fixed a bug that caused bash to not pass the correct flags for signal
disposition to child processes.
f.
Fixed a bug that caused `fc -l' to list one too many history entries.
g.
Some fixes to `fc' for POSIX conformance.
h.
Some fixes to job status display for POSIX conformance.
i.
Fixed a bug that caused `command -v' to display output if a command was not
found -- it should be silent.
j.
In POSIX mode, `type' and `command -[vV]' do not report non-executable

files, even if the shell will attempt to execute them.
k.
Fixed a bug that caused the `==' operator to the [[ command to not attempt
extended pattern matching.
l.
Fixed the brace expansion code to handle characters whose value exceeds 128.
m.
Fixed `printf' to handle strings with a leading `\0' whose length is

non-zero.
n.
Fixed a couple of problems with brace expansion where `${' was handled
incorrectly.
o.
Fixed off-by-one error when calculating the upper bound of òffset' when
processing the ${array[@]:offset:length} expansion.
p.
System-specific configuration changes for: FreeBSD 5.x, Interix, MacOS X

10.4, Linux 2.4+ kernels, Linux 3.x kernels, Dragonfly BSD, QNX 6.x,
Cygwin
q.
Fixed a bug that caused the shell to ignore the status of the rightmost
command in a pipeline when the `pipefail' option was enabled.
r.
Fixed a completion bug that caused core dumps when expanding a directory
name.
s.
Fixed a bug that prevented `hash -d' from removing commands from the hash
table.
t.
Fixed word splitting to avoid really bad quadratic performance when

expanding long lists.
u.
Fixed a bug that caused negative offsets in substring expansion to use the
wrong values.
v.
Fixed a bug in printf that caused it to not return failure on write errors.
w.
Fixed a bug that caused commands in subshells to not be properly timed.
x.
The shell parser no longer attempts to parse a compound assignment specially

unless in a position where an assignment statement is acceptable or parsing
arguments to a builtin that accepts assignment statements.
y.
Fixed a problem that caused a `case' statement to be added to the history

incorrectly as a single command if the `case word' was on one line and the
ìn' on another.
z.
Fixed a problem that caused internal shell quoting characters to be

incorrectly quoted with backslashes under some circumstances.
aa. The shell now performs correct word splitting when IFS contains multibyte
characters.
bb. The mail checking code now resets the cached file information if the size
drops to 0, even if the times don't change.
cc. A completed command name that is found in $PATH as well as the name of a
directory in the current directory no longer has a slash appended in certain
circumstances: a single instance found in $PATH when `.' is not in $PATH,
and multiple instances found in $PATH, even when `.' is in $PATH.
dd. Incorporated tilde expansion into the word expansion code rather than as a
separately-called function, fixing some cases where it was performed
inappropriately (e.g., after the second `=' in an assignment statement or
in a double-quoted parameter expansion).
ee. Fixed several bugs encountered when parsing compound assignment statements,
so that compound assignments appearing as arguments to builtins are no
longer double-expanded.
ff. Fixed a bug in the command execution code that caused asynchronous commands
containing command substitutions to not put the terminal in the wrong
process group.
gg. Bash now handles the case where the WCONTINUED flag causes waitpid() to
return -1/EINVAL at runtime as well as configuration time.
hh. Fixed parser to generate an error when the pipeline àrgument' to `!' or
`time' is NULL.
ii. The shell now takes a little more care when manipulating file descriptors
greater than 9 with the èxec' builtin.
jj. Fixed a bug that caused variable assignments preceding the `command' builtin
preceding a special builtin to be preserved after the command completed in
POSIX mode.
kk. Fixed a bug that allowed variables beginning with a digit to be created.
ll. Fixed a bug that caused a \<newline> to be removed when parsing a $'...'
construct.
mm. A shell whose name begins with `-' will now be a restricted shell if the
remainder of the name indicates it should be restricted.
nn. Fixed a bug that could cause a core dump if FUNCNAME were changed or unset
during a function's execution.
oo. Fixed a bug that caused executing a `return' in a function to not execute
a RETURN trap. The RETURN trap is inherited by shell functions only if
function tracing is globally enabled or has been enabled for that function.
pp. Fixed cases where var[@] was not handled exactly like var, when var is a
scalar variable.
qq. Fixed a bug that caused the first character after a SIGINT to be discarded
under certain circumstances.
rr. Fixed exit status code so that a suspended job returns 128+signal as its
exit status (preventing commands after it in `&&' lists from being
executed).
ss. Fixed a bug that caused the shell parser state to be changed by executing
a shell function as a result of word completion.
tt. Fixed a long-standing bug that caused '\177' characters in variable
values to be discarded when expanded in double-quoted strings.
uu. Fixed a bug that caused $RANDOM to be re-seeded multiple times in a
subshell environment.
vv. Extensive changes to the job management code to avoid the pid-reuse and
pid-aliasing problems caused by retaining the exit status of too many jobs,
but still retain as many background job statuses as POSIX requires.
ww. Fixed a parser bug in processing \<newline> that caused things like
((echo 5) \
(echo 6))
to not work correctly.
xx. `pwd -P' now sets $PWD to a directory name containing no symbolic links
when in posix mode, as POSIX requires.
yy. In posix mode, bash no longer sets $PWD to a name containing no symbolic
links if a directory is chosen from $CDPATH.
zz. The word splitting code now treats an IFS character that is not space,
tab, or newline and any adjacent IFS white space as a single delimiter, as
SUSv3/XPG6 require.
aaa. The `read' builtin now checks whether or not the number of fields read is
exactly the same as the number of variables instead of just assigning the
rest of the line (minus any trailing IFS white space) to the last
variable. This is what POSIX/SUS/XPG all require.
bbb. Fixed a bug that caused `read' to always check whether or not fd 0 was a
pipe, even when reading from another file descriptor.
ccc. Fixed a bug that caused short-circuiting of execution even if the return
value was being inverted.
ddd. Fixed a bug that caused a core dump while decoding \W escapes in PS1 if
PWD was unset.
eee. Fixed a bug in `read' that counted internal quoting characters for the
purposes of `read -n'.
fff. Fixed a bug so that a function definition in a pipeline causes a child
process to be forked at the right time.
ggg. Bash will not attempt to link against a readline library that doesn't
have rl_gnu_readline_p == 1.
hhh. Fixed a bug that caused `read' to consume one too many characters when
reading a fixed number of characters and the Nth character is a backslash.
iii. Fixed a bug that caused ùnset' on variables in the temporary environment
to leave them set when ùnset' completed.
jjj. Fixed a bug that caused bash to close fd 2 if an èxec' failed and the
shell didn't exit.
kkk. The completion code is more careful to not turn `/' or `///' into `//',
for those systems on which `//' has special meaning.
lll. Fixed a bug that caused command substitution in asynchronous commands to
close the wrong file descriptors.
mmm. The shell no longer prints status messages about terminated background
processes unless job control is active.
nnn. Fixed a bug that prevented multiple consecutive invocations of `history -s'
from adding all the commands to the history list.
ooo. Added a couple of changes to make arithmetic expansion more consistent in
all its contexts (still not perfect).
ppp. Fixed a bug that caused the parser to occasionally not find the right
terminating "`" in an old-style command substitution.
qqq. Fixed a bug that caused core dumps when the shell was reading its noninteractive input from fd 0 and fd 0 was duplicated and restored using a
combination of èxec' (to save) and redirection (to restore).
rrr. Fixed a problem that caused loops in sourced scripts to not be cleaned
up properly when a `return' is executed.
sss. Change internal command substitution completion function to append a slash
to directory names in the command.
2.
Changes to Readline
a.
Fixed a bug that caused multiliine prompts to be wrapped and displayed
incorrectly.
b.
Fixed a bug that caused ^P/^N in emacs mode to fail to display the current
line correctly.
c.
Fixed a problem in computing the number of invisible characters on the first

line of a prompt whose length exceeds the screen width.
d.
Fixed vi-mode searching so that failure preserves the current line rather
than the last line in the history list.
e.
Fixed the vi-mode `~' command (change-case) to have the correct behavior at
end-of-line when manipulating multibyte characters.
f.
Fixed the vi-mode `r' command (change-char) to have the correct behavior at
end-of-line when manipulating multibyte characters.
g.
Fixed multiple bugs in the redisplay of multibyte characters: displaying

prompts longer than the screen width containing multibyte characters,
h.
Fix the calculation of the number of physical characters in the prompt

string when it contains multibyte characters.
i.
A non-zero value for the `rl_complete_suppress_append' variable now causes

no `/' to be appended to a directory name.
j.
Fixed forward-word and backward-word to work when words contained

k.
Fixed a bug in finding the delimiter of a `?' substring when performing

history expansion in a locale that supports multibyte characters.
l.
Fixed a memory leak caused by not freeing the timestamp in a history entry.
m.
Fixed a bug that caused "\M-x" style key bindings to not obey the setting
of the `convert-meta' variable.
n.
Fixed saving and restoring primary prompt when prompting for incremental
and non-incremental searches; search prompts now display multibyte
characters correctly.
o.
Fixed a bug that caused keys originally bound to self-insert but shadowed
by a multi-character key sequence to not be inserted.
p.
Fixed code so rl_prep_term_function and rl_deprep_term_function aren't

dereferenced if NULL (matching the documentation).
q.
Extensive changes to readline to add enough state so that commands

requiring additional characters (searches, multi-key sequences, numeric
arguments, commands requiring an additional specifier character like
vi-mode change-char, etc.) work without synchronously waiting for
additional input.
r.
Lots of changes so readline builds and runs on MinGW.
s.
Readline no longer tries to modify the terminal settings when running in

callback mode.
t.
The Readline display code no longer sets the location of the last invisible
character in the prompt if the \[\] sequence is empty.
3.
a.
Bash now understands LC_TIME as a special variable so that time display
tracks the current locale.

b.
BASH_ARGC, BASH_ARGV, BASH_SOURCE, and BASH_LINENO are no longer created

as ìnvisible' variables and may not be unset.
c.
In POSIX mode, if `xpg_echo' option is enabled, the ècho' builtin doesn't

try to interpret any options at all, as POSIX requires.
d.
The `bg' builtin now accepts multiple arguments, as POSIX seems to specify.
e.
Fixed vi-mode word completion and glob expansion to perform tilde

expansion.
f.
The `**' mathematic exponentiation operator is now right-associative.
g.
The ùlimit' builtin has new options: -i (max number of pending signals),
-q (max size of POSIX message queues), and -x (max number of file locks).
h.
A bare `%' once again expands to the current job when used as a job
specifier.
i.
The `+=' assignment operator (append to the value of a string or array) is

now supported for assignment statements and arguments to builtin commands
that accept assignment statements.
j.
BASH_COMMAND now preserves its value when a DEBUG trap is executed.
k.
The `gnu_errfmt' option is enabled automatically if the shell is running

in an emacs terminal window.
l.
New configuration option: --single-help-strings. Causes long help text

to be written as a single string; intended to ease translation.
m.
The COMP_WORDBREAKS variable now causes the list of word break characters
to be emptied when the variable is unset.
n.
An unquoted expansion of $* when $IFS is empty now causes the positional

parameters to be concatenated if the expansion doesn't undergo word
splitting.
o.
Bash now inherits $_ from the environment if it appears there at startup.
p.
New shell option: nocasematch. If non-zero, shell pattern matching ignores

case when used by `case' and `[[' commands.
q.
The `printf' builtin takes a new option: -v var.

to be placed into var instead of on stdout.
r.
By default, the shell no longer reports processes dying from SIGPIPE.
s.
Bash now sets the extern variable ènviron' to the export environment it
creates, so C library functions that call getenv() (and can't use the
shell-provided replacement) get current values of environment variables.
4.
a.
The key sequence sent by the keypad `delete' key is now automatically
bound to delete-char.
b.
A negative argument to menu-complete now cycles backward through the

completion list.
c.
A new bindable readline variable: bind-tty-special-chars. If non-zero,

readline will bind the terminal special characters to their readline
That causes the output
equivalents when it's called (on by default).

d.
New bindable command: vi-rubout. Saves deleted text for possible

reinsertion, as with any vi-mode `text modification' command; `X' is bound
to this in vi command mode.

1.
Changes to Bash
a.
Fixed a boundary overrun that could cause segmentation faults when the
completion code hands an incomplete construct to the word expansion
functions.
b.
Changed posix mode behavior so that an error in a variable assignment

preceding a special builtin causes a non-interactive shell to exit.
c.
Change the directory expansion portion of the completion code to not

expand embedded command substitutions if the directory name appears in
the file system.
d.
Fixed a problem that caused `bash -r' to turn on restrictions before

reading the startup files.
e.
Fixed a problem with the default operation of the ùmask' builtin.
2.
Changes to Readline
a.
Fixed a problem with readline saving the contents of the current line
before beginning a non-interactive search.
b.
Fixed a problem with EOF detection when using rl_event_hook.
c.
Fixed a problem with the vi mode `p' and `P' commands ignoring numeric
arguments.

1.
Changes to Bash
a.
Fixed a bug that caused incorrect behavior when referecing element 0 of

an array using $array, element 0 was unset, and `set -u' was enabled.
b.
System-specific changes for: SCO Unix 3.2, Tandem.
c.
Fixed a bug that caused inappropriate word splitting when a variable was
expanded within a double-quoted string that also included $@.
d.
Fixed a bug that caused `pwd' to not display anything in physical mode
when the file system had changed underneath the shell.
e.
Fixed a bug in the pre- and post- increment and decrement parsing in the
expression evaluator that caused errors when the operands and corresponding
operators were separated by whitespace.
f.
Fixed a bug that caused `history -p' to add an entry to the history list,
counter to the documentation. (Keeps the history expansions invoked by
emacs-mode command line editing from doing that as well.)
g.
Fixed a bug that could cause a core dump if `cd' is asked to print out a
pathname longer than PATH_MAX characters.

h.
Fixed a bug that caused jobs to be put into the wrong process group under
some circumstances after enabling job control with `set -m'.
i.
ùnalias' now
j.
Documented the characters not allowed to appear in an alias name.
k.
$* is no longer expanded as if in double quotes when it appears in the

body of a here document, as the SUS seems to require.
l.
The `bashbug' script now uses a directory in $TMPDIR for exclusive

access rather than trying to guess how the underlying OS provides for
secure temporary file creation.
m.
Fixed a few problems with `cd' and `pwd' when asked to operate on pathnames
longer than PATH_MAX characters.
n.
Fixed a memory leak caused when creating multiple local array variables
with identical names.
o.
Fixed a problem with calls to getcwd() so that bash now operates better
when the full pathname to the current directory is longer than PATH_MAX
bytes.
p.
The `trap' builtin now reports an error if a single non-signal argument

is specified.
q.
Fixed a bug that caused ùmask' to not work correctly when presented
with a mask of all 0s.
r.
When `getopts' reaches the end of options, OPTARG is unset, as POSIX

appears to specify.
s.
Interactive mode now depends on whether or not stdin and stderr are
connected to a tty; formerly it was stdin and stdout. POSIX requires
this.
t.
Fixed vi-mode completion to work more as POSIX specifies (e.g., doing the
right kind of filename generation).
2.
Changes to Readline
a.
Fixed a problem that could cause readline to refer to freed memory when
moving between history lines while doing searches.
b.
Improvements to the code that expands and displays prompt strings

containing multibyte characters.
c.
Fixed a problem with vi-mode not correctly remembering the numeric argument
to the last `c'hange command for later use with `.'.
d.
Fixed a bug in vi-mode that caused multi-digit count arguments to work

incorrectly.
e.
Fixed a problem in vi-mode that caused the last text modification command
to not be remembered across different command lines.
f.
Fixed problems with changing characters and changing case at the end of
the line.
3.
returns failure if no alias name arguments are supplied.
a.
The `jobs', `kill', and `wait' builtins now accept job control notation
even if job control is not enabled.
b.
The historical behavior of `trap' that allows a missing àction' argument

to cause each specified signal's handling to be reset to its default is
now only supported when `trap' is given a single non-option argument.
4.
a.
When listing completions, directories have a `/' appended if the

`mark-directories' option has been enabled.

1.
Changes to Bash
a.
Fixes to build correctly when arrays are not compiled into the shell.
b.
Fixed command substitution to run any exit trap defined in the command
substitution before returning; the exit trap is not inherited from the
calling shell.
c.
Fixes to process group synchronization code so that every child process

attempts to set the terminal's process group; fixes some synchronization
problems on Linux kernels that schedule the child to always run before
the parent.
d.
Fixed processing of octal and hex constants in printf builtin for POSIX.2
compliance.
e.
Fixed a couple of core dumps in the pattern removal code.
f.
Fixes to the array subrange extraction code to deal better with sparse
arrays.
g.
Parser errors and other errors that result in the shell exiting now cause
the exit trap to be run.
h.
Change the command substitution completion functions to not append any

closing quote, because it would be inserted a closing "`" or ")".
i.
Fix history initialization so assignments to $histchars made in startup

files are honored.
j.
If an exit trap does not contain a call to èxit', the shell now uses
the exit status of the last command executed before the trap as the exit
status of the shell.
k.
The parser now prompts with $PS2 if it reads a newline while parsing a
compound array assignment statement.
l.
When performing a compound array assignment, the parser doesn't treat

words of the form [index]=value as assignments if they're the result of
expansions.
m.
Fixed a bug that caused `return' executed in a trap command to make the
shell think it was still running the trap.
n.
Fixed the value of errno set by the pathname canonicalization functions.
o.
Changed the grammar so that `time' alone on a line times a null command
rather than being a syntax error.
p.
The pattern substitution code no longer performs quote removal on the

pattern before trying to match it, as the pattern removal functions do.
q.
Fixed a bug that could cause core dumps when checking whether a quoted
command name was being completed.
r.
Fixes to the pattern removal and pattern replacement expansions to deal

with multibyte characters better (and faster).
s.
Fix to the substring expansion (${param:off[:len]}) to deal with (possibly

multibyte) characters instead of raw bytes.
t.
Fixed a bug that caused some key bindings set in an inputrc to be ignored
at shell startup.
u.
Fixed a bug that caused unsetting a local variable within a function to

not work correctly.
v.
Fixed a bug that caused invalid variables to be created when using

`read -a'.
w.
Fixed a bug that caused "$@" to expand incorrectly when used as the right
hand side of a parameter expansion such as ${word:="$@"} if the first
character of $IFS was not a space.
x.
Fixed a slight cosmetic problem when printing commands containing a

`>&word' redirection.
y.
Fixed a problem that could cause here documents to not be created correctly
if the system temporary directory did not allow writing.
2.
Changes to Readline
a.
Change to history expansion functions to treat `^' as equivalent to word

one, as the documention states.
b.
Some changes to the display code to improve display and redisplay of

c.
Changes to speed up the multibyte character redisplay code.
d.
Fixed a bug in the vi-mode È' command that caused it to skip over the
last character of a word if invoked while point was on the word's
next-to-last character.
e.
Fixed a bug that could cause incorrect filename quoting when

case-insensitive completion was enabled and the word being completed
contained backslashes quoting word break characters.
f.
Fixed a bug in redisplay triggered when the prompt string contains

invisible characters.
g.
Fixed some display (and other) bugs encountered in multibyte locales

when a non-ascii character was the last character on a line.
h.
Fixed some display bugs caused by multibyte characters in prompt strings.
i.
Fixed a problem with history expansion caused by non-whitespace characters

used as history word delimiters.
3.
a.
printf builtin understands two new escape sequences:
\" and \?.
b.
ècho -e' understands two new escape sequences:
\" and \?.
c.
The GNU `gettext' package and libintl have been integrated; the shell's
messages can be translated into different languages.
d.
The `\W' prompt expansion now abbreviates $HOME as `~', like `\w'.
e.
The error message printed when bash cannot open a shell script supplied
as argument 1 now includes the name of the shell, to better identify
the error as coming from bash.
4.
a.
New application variable, rl_completion_quote_character, set to any

quote character readline finds before it calls the application completion
function.
b.
New application variable, rl_completion_suppress_quote, settable by an

application completion function. If set to non-zero, readline does not
attempt to append a closing quote to a completed word.
c.
New application variable, rl_completion_found_quote, set to a non-zero

value if readline determines that the word to be completed is quoted.
Set before readline calls any application completion function.
d.
New function hook, rl_completion_word_break_hook, called when readline

needs to break a line into words when completion is attempted. Allows
the word break characters to vary based on position in the line.
e.
New bindable command: unix-filename-rubout. Does the same thing as

unix-word-rubout, but adds `/' to the set of word delimiters.

and the previous version, bash-2.05b-release.
1.
Changes to Bash
a.
Fixes so that the shell will compile without some of the default options
defined.
b.
Fixed an error message that did not pass enough arguments to printf.
c.
Fixed a bug that caused input redirection to a builtin inside a script

being read from standard input to result in the rest of the alreadyread and buffered script to be discarded.
d.
Fixed a bug that caused subshell initialization to close the file

descriptor from which the shell was reading a script under certain
circumstances.
e.
Fixed a bug that caused the shell to not advance a string pointer over
a null wide character when doing string operations.
f.
Fixed the internal logout code so that shells that time out waiting for
input (using $TMOUT) run ~/.bash_logout.
g.
Portability and configuration changes for: cygwin, HP/UX, GNU/FreeBSD.
h.
The parser no longer adds implicit double quotes to ((...)) arithmetic

commands.
i.
The ((...)) arithmetic command evaluation code was fixed to not dump core
when the expanded string is null.

j.
The ((...)) arithmetic command evaluation code was fixed to not perform
variable assignments while expanding the expression.
k.
Fixed a bug that caused word splitting to be performed incorrectly when

IFS is set, but null.
l.
Fixed a bug in brace expansion that caused a quoted `$' preceding an

open brace to inhibit brace expansion.
m.
Fixed a bug that caused a leading `-' in the shell's name to cause it to
not be recognized as a restricted shell.
n.
Fixed a bug in the arithmetic evaluation code that could cause longjmps
to an invalid location and result in a core dump.
o.
Fixed a bug in the calculation of how many history lines are new in a
single shell session when reading new history lines from a file with
`history -n'.
p.
Fixed a bug in pathname canonicalization that caused the shell to dump

core when presented with a pathname longer than PATH_MAX.
q.
Fixed the parser so that it doesn't try to compare a char variable to

EOF, which fails when chars are unsigned.
r.
Fixed a bug in the simple command execution code that caused occasional
core dumps.
s.
The shell does a better job of saving any partial parsing state during
operations which cause a command to be executed while a line is being
entered and parsed.
t.
The completion code now splits words more like the expansion code when
$IFS is used to split.
u.
The locale code does a better job of recomputing the various locale
variable values when LC_ALL is unset.
v.
The programmable completion code does a better job of dequoting expanded

word lists before comparing them against the word to be matched.
w.
The shell no longer seg faults if the expanded value of $PS4 is null
and `set -x' is enabled.
x.
Fixed a bug that caused core dumps when a here string expanded to NULL.
y.
The mail checking code now makes sure the mailbox is bigger before
reporting the existence of new mail.
z.
The parser does not try to expand $'...' and $"..." when the appear
within double quotes unless the èxtquote' option has been enabled with
`shopt'. For backwards compatibility, it is enabled by default.
aa. Fixed a bug that caused `for x; do ...' and `select x; do ... to use
$@ instead of "$@" for the implicit list of arguments.
bb. Fixed a bug that caused a subshell of a restricted shell (e.g., one
spawned to execute a pipeline) to not exit immediately if attempting
to use a command containing a slash.
cc. Fixed a problem with empty replacements for a pattern that doesn't match
when performing ${param/word/} expansion.
dd. Word expansions performed while expanding redirections no longer search

a command's temporary environment to expand variable values.
ee. Improvements to the alias expansion code when expanding subsequent words
because an aliase's value ends with a space.
ff. `cd -' now prints the current working directory after a successful chdir
even when the shell is not interactive, as the standard requires.
gg. The shell does a better job of ensuring a child process dies of SIGINT
before resending SIGINT to itself.
hh. The arithmetic expansion variable assignment code now does the right
thing when assigning to `special' variables like OPTIND.
ii. When history expansion verification is enabled, the bash readline helper
functions that do history expansion on the current line don't print
the results.
jj. Fixed bugs with multiple consecutive alias expansion when one of the
expansions ends with a space.
kk. Fixed a problem in the programmable completion code that could cause core
dumps when trying to initialize a set of possible completions from a
list of variables.
ll. The \[ and \] escape characters are now ignored when decoding the prompt
string if the shell is started with editing disabled.
mm. Fixed a bug that could leave extra characters in a string when doing
quoted null character removal.
nn. Command substitution and other subshell operations no longer reset the
line number (aids the bash debugger).
oo. Better line number management when executing simple commands, conditional
commands, for commands, and select commands.
pp. The globbing code now uses malloc, with its better failure properties,
rather than alloca().
qq. Fixed a bug that caused expansions like #{a[2]:=value} to create the
appropriate array element instead of a variable named à[2]'.
rr. Fixed a bug in the handling of a `?(...)' pattern immediately following
a `*' when extglob is enabled.
ss. Fixed a bug that caused a `return' invoked in an exit trap when exit is
invoked in a function to misbehave.
tt. Fixed a bug that caused CTLESC and CTLNUL characters to not be escaped
by the internal shell string quoting functions.
uu. Fixed a bug that caused quoted null characters in an expanded word list
to be inappropriately assigned to an array variable when using `read -a'.
vv. Fixed a bug that caused redirections accompanying a null command to persist
in the current shell.
ww. Fixed a bug that caused the prompt to be printed when the shell was
expanding a multiline alias.
xx. Fixed a bug that resulted in core dumps when the completion for a command
changed the compspec.

yy. Fixed a bug that caused evaluation of programmable completions to print
notifications of completed jobs.
zz. Bash now disables line editing when $EMACS == `t' and $TERM == `dumb'
(which is what emacs shell windows do).
aaa. In posix mode, `kill -l' causes signal names to be displayed without
a leading `SIG'.
bbb. Clear error flag on standard output so it doesn't persist across multiple
builtin commands.
ccc. In posix mode, àlias' displays alias values without the leading àlias',
so the output cannot be used as subsequent input.
ddd. In posix mode, the `trap' builtin doesn't check whether or not its
first argument is a signal specification and revert the signal handling
to its original disposition if it is.
eee. Fixed several bugs in the handling of "$*" and "${array[*]}" by the
pattern substitution and removal expansions.
fff. Fixed several problems with the handling of ${array[@]}, ${array[*]},
$@, and $* by the indirect variable expansion code.
ggg. Fixed a bug that did not allow `time' to be aliased.
hhh. Improved the mail checking code so it won't check (and possibly cause an
NFS file system mount) until MAILPATH or MAIL is given a value -- there
is no default if DEFAULT_MAIL_DIRECTORY is not defined at compile time.
(It is computed by configure, but can be #undef'd in config-bot.h.)
iii. If the `chkwinsize' option is enabled, the shell checks for window size
changes if a child process exits due to a signal.
jjj. Removed the attempts to avoid adding a slash at the end of a completed
executable name if there was a directory with the same name in the
current directory.
kkk. Fixed PATH lookup code so it treats the permission bits separately for
owner, group, and other, rather than checking them all.
lll. Fixed the locale code to reset the parser's idea of the character class
<blank>, which controls how it splits tokens, when the locale changes.
mmm. The shell now binds its special readline functions and key bindings only
if the user's inputrc file has not already bound them.
nnn. The shell now reports on processes that dump core due to signals when
invoked as `-c command'.
2.
Changes to Readline
a.
Fixes to avoid core dumps because of null pointer references in the

multibyte character code.
b.
Fix to avoid infinite recursion caused by certain key combinations.
c.
Fixed a bug that caused the vi-mode `last command' to be set incorrectly.
d.
Readline no longer tries to read ahead more than one line of input, even
when more is available.
e.
Fixed the code that adjusts the point to not mishandle null wide
characters.
f.
Fixed a bug in the history expansion `g' modifier that caused it to skip
every other match.
g.
Fixed a bug that caused the prompt to overwrite previous output when the
output doesn't contain a newline and the locale supports multibyte
characters. This same change fixes the problem of readline redisplay
slowing down dramatically as the line gets longer in multibyte locales.
h.
History traversal with arrow keys in vi insertion mode causes the cursor
to be placed at the end of the new line, like in emacs mode.
i.
The locale initialization code does a better job of using the right
precedence and defaulting when checking the appropriate environment
variables.
j.
Fixed the history word tokenizer to handle <( and >( better when used as
part of bash.
k.
The overwrite mode code received several bug fixes to improve undo.
l.
Many speedups to the multibyte character redisplay code.
m.
The callback character reading interface should not hang waiting to read
keyboard input.
n.
Fixed a bug with redoing vi-mode `s' command.
o.
The code that initializes the terminal tracks changes made to the terminal
special characters with stty(1) (or equivalent), so that these changes
are reflected in the readline bindings. New application-callable function
to make it work: rl_tty_unset_default_bindings().
p.
Fixed a bug that could cause garbage to be inserted in the buffer when
changing character case in vi mode when using a multibyte locale.
q.
Fixed a bug in the redisplay code that caused problems on systems

supporting multibyte characters when moving between history lines when the
new line has more glyphs but fewer bytes.
r.
Undo and redo now work better after exiting vi insertion mode.
s.
Make sure system calls are restarted after a SIGWINCH is received using
SA_RESTART.
t.
Improvements to the code that displays possible completions when using

u.
Fixed a problem when parsing nested if statements in inputrc files.
v.
The completer now takes multibyte characters into account when looking for
quoted substrings on which to perform completion.
w.
The history search functions now perform better bounds checking on the
history list.
3.
a.
ANSI string expansion now implements the \x{hexdigits} escape.
b.
There is a new loadable `strftime' builtin.
c.
New variable, COMP_WORDBREAKS, which controls the readline completer's

idea of word break characters.
d.
The `type' builtin no longer reports on aliases unless alias expansion

will actually be performed.
e.
HISTCONTROL is now a colon-separated list of values, which permits

more extensibility and backwards compatibility.
f.
HISTCONTROL may now include the èrasedups' option, which causes all lines
matching a line being added to be removed from the history list.
g.
`configure' has a new `--enable-multibyte' argument that permits multibyte

character support to be disabled even on systems that support it.
h.
New variables to support the bash debugger: BASH_ARGC, BASH_ARGV,

BASH_SOURCE, BASH_LINENO, BASH_SUBSHELL, BASH_EXECUTION_STRING,
BASH_COMMAND
i.
FUNCNAME has been changed to support the debugger: it's now an array
variable.
j.
for, case, select, arithmetic commands now keep line number information
for the debugger.
k.
There is a new `RETURN' trap executed when a function or sourced script

returns (not inherited child processes; inherited by command substitution
if function tracing is enabled and the debugger is active).
l.
New invocation option: --debugger.

èxtdebug' shell option.
m.
New `functrace' and èrrtrace' options to `set -o' cause DEBUG and ERR
traps, respectively, to be inherited by shell functions. Equivalent to
`set -T' and `set -E' respectively. The `functrace' option also controls
whether or not the DEBUG trap is inherited by sourced scripts.
n.
The DEBUG trap is run before binding the variable and running the action
list in a `for' command, binding the selection variable and running the
query in a `select' command, and before attempting a match in a `case'
command.
o.
New `--enable-debugger' option to `configure' to compile in the debugger

support code.
p.
`declare -F' now prints out extra line number and source file information
if the èxtdebug' option is set.
q.
If èxtdebug' is enabled, a non-zero return value from a DEBUG trap causes

the next command to be skipped, and a return value of 2 while in a
function or sourced script forces a `return'.
r.
New `caller' builtin to provide a call stack for the bash debugger.
s.
The DEBUG trap is run just before the first command in a function body is
executed, for the debugger.
t.
`for', `select', and `case' command heads are printed when `set -x' is
enabled.
u.
There is a new {x..y} brace expansion, which is shorthand for {x.x+1,

x+2,...,y}. x and y can be integers or single characters; the sequence
may ascend or descend; the increment is always 1.
Enables debugging and turns on new
v.
New ksh93-like ${!array[@]} expansion, expands to all the keys (indices)

of array.
w.
New `force_fignore' shopt option; if enabled, suffixes specified by

FIGNORE cause words to be ignored when performing word completion even
if they're the only possibilities.
x.
New `gnu_errfmt' shopt option; if enabled, error messages follow the `gnu
style' (filename:lineno:message) format.
y.
New `-o bashdefault' option to complete and compgen; if set, causes the
whole set of bash completions to be performed if the compspec doesn't
result in a match.
z.
New `-o plusdirs' option to complete and compgen; if set, causes directory
name completion to be performed and the results added to the rest of the
possible completions.
aa. `kill' is available as a builtin even when the shell is built without
job control.
bb. New HISTTIMEFORMAT variable; value is a format string to pass to
strftime(3). If set and not null, the `history' builtin prints out
timestamp information according to the specified format when displaying
history entries. If set, bash tells the history library to write out
timestamp information when the history file is written.
cc. The [[ ... ]] command has a new binary `=~' operator that performs
extended regular expression (egrep-like) matching.
dd. `configure' has a new `--enable-cond-regexp' option (enabled by default)
to enable the =~ operator and regexp matching in [[ ... ]].
ee. Subexpressions matched by the =~ operator are placed in the new
BASH_REMATCH array variable.
ff. New `failglob' option that causes an expansion error when pathname
expansion fails to produce a match.
gg. New `set -o pipefail' option that causes a pipeline to return a failure
status if any of the processes in the pipeline fail, not just the last
one.
4.
a.
History expansion has a new à' modifier equivalent to the `g' modifier
for compatibility with the BSD csh.
b.
History expansion has a new `G' modifier equivalent to the BSD csh `g'
modifier, which performs a substitution once per word.
c.
All non-incremental search operations may now undo the operation of

replacing the current line with the history line.
d.
The text inserted by an à' command in vi mode can be reinserted with

`.'.
e.
New bindable variable, `show-all-if-unmodified'. If set, the readline

completer will list possible completions immediately if there is more
than one completion and partial completion cannot be performed.
f.
There is a new application-callable `free_history_entry()' function.
g.
History list entries now contain timestamp information; the history file
functions know how to read and write timestamp information associated
with each entry.
h.
Four new key binding functions have been added:

rl_bind_key_if_unbound()
rl_bind_key_if_unbound_in_map()
rl_bind_keyseq_if_unbound()
rl_bind_keyseq_if_unbound_in_map()
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------This document details the changes between this version, bash-2.05b-release,

and the previous version, bash-2.05b-beta2.
1.
Changes to Bash
a.
Fixed an off-by-one error in the function that translates job

specifications.
b.
Note that we're running under Emacs and disable line editing if
$EMACS == `t'.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------This document details the changes between this version, bash-2.05b-beta2,

and the previous version, bash-2.05b-beta1.
1.
Changes to Bash
a.
Fixed the /= and %= arithmetic operators to catch division by zero.
b.
Added putenv, setenv, unsetenv to getenv replacement for completeness.
c.
Fixed a bug that could cause the -O expand_aliases invocation option

to not take effect.
d.
Fixed a problem with process substitution that resulted in incorrect

behavior when the number of process substitutions in an individual
command approached 64.
2.
Changes to Readline
a.
Fixed a problem with backward-char-search when on a system with support

for multibyte characters when running in a locale without any multibyte
characters.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------This document details the changes between this version, bash-2.05b-beta1,

and the previous version, bash-2.05b-alpha1.
1.
Changes to Bash
a.
Fixed a problem when parsing a POSIX.2 character class name while

evaluating a bracket expression containing multibyte characters.
b.
Changed the help text for `bind' to make it clear that any command
that may be placed in ~/.inputrc is a valid argument to `bind'.
c.
Added `help' builtin entries for `((', `[[', and arithmetic for.
d.
malloc updated again:

o slightly better overflow and underflow detection by putting the
chunk size at the beginning and end of the chunk and making
sure they match in free/realloc
o partial page allocated to make things page-aligned no longer

completely wasted
o block coalescing now enabled by default
o splitting and coalescing enabled for 32-byte chunks, the most
common size requested
o fixed a problem that resulted in spurious underflow messages and
aborts
o bin sizes are precomputed and stored in an array rather than
being computed at run time
o malloc will return memory blocks back to the system if the block
being freed is at the top of the heap and of sufficient size to
make it worthwhile
o malloc/free/realloc now inline memset instead of calling the
libc function; uses Duff's device for good performance
e.
Check for getservent(); make the service name completion code dependent
on its presence.
f.
Changed the readline callback that executes a command bound to a key

sequence to not save the executed command on the history list and to
save and restore the parsing state.
g.
Changes to lib/sh/snprintf.c: fixed some bugs in the `g' and `G'

floating point format display; implemented the "'" flag character
that turns on thousands' grouping; fixed behavior on systems where
MB_CUR_MAX does not evaluate to a constant.
h.
The ùnset' builtin no longer returns a failure status when asked to

unset a previously-unset variable or function.
i.
Changes to the build system to make it easier to cross-compile bash

for different systems.
j.
Added `,' to the characters that are backslash-escaped during filename

completion, to avoid problems with complete-into-braces and RCS filenames
containing commas.
k.
Some changes to the multibyte character support code to avoid many calls
to strlen().
l.
Bash now correctly honors setting LANG to some value when LC_ALL does not
already have a value.
m.
Fixed a bug that could cause SIGSEGV when processing nested traps with
trap handlers.
n.
The `source/.' builtin now restores the positional parameters when it

returns unless they were changed using the `set' builtin during the file's
execution.
o.
Fixed a bug that caused a syntax error when a command was terminated by
EOF.
2.
a.
There is now support for placing the long help text into separate files
installed into ${datadir}/bash. Not enabled by default; can be turned
on with `--enable-separate-helpfiles' option to configure.
b.
All builtins that take operands accept a `--' pseudo-option, except

ècho'.
c.
The ècho' builtin now accepts \0xxx (zero to three octal digits following
the `0') in addition to \xxx (one to three octal digits) for SUSv3/XPG6/
POSIX.1-2001 compliance.
3.
Changes to Readline
a.
Fixed a small problem in _rl_insert_char with multibyte characters.
b.
Fixes from IBM for line wrapping problems when using multibyte characters.
c.
Fixed a problem which caused the display to be messed up when the last
line of a multi-line prompt (possibly containing invisible characters)
was longer than the screen width.
d.
Fixed a problem with the vi-mode `r' command that ocurred on systems with
support for multibyte characters when running in a locale without any
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------This document details the changes between this version, bash-2.05b-alpha1,

and the previous version, bash-2.05a-release.
1.
Changes to Bash
a.
Some changes to work around inlining differences between compilers.
b.
Added more prototypes for internal shell typedefs, to catch argument

passing errors when using pointers to functions.
c.
The `cd' builtin now fails in posix mode when a valid directory cannot be
constructed from a relative pathname argument and the $PWD using pathname
canonicalization, and the -P option has not been supplied. Previously,
the shell would attempt to use what the user typed, leading to weird
values for $PWD and discrepancies between the value of $PWD and the
actual working directory.
d.
The `cd' builtin now resets $PWD when canonicalization fails but a chdir
to the pathname passed as an argument succeeds (when not in posix mode).
e.
The `fc' builtin has been fixed, as POSIX requires, to use the closest
history position in range when given an out-of-range argument.
f.
The history file loading code was changed to allow lines to be saved in
the history list from the shell startup files.
g.
`history -s args' now works better in compound commands.
h.
The tilde expansion code was fixed to better recognize when it's being
invoked in an assignment context, which enables expansion after `='
and `:'.
i.
Fixed the command name completion code so a slash is no longer appended

to a single match if there happens to be a directory with that name in
$PWD.
j.
Fixed compound array assignment to no longer perform alias expansion, to

allow reserved words as array members, and to not produce extra output
when the `-v' option had been enabled.
k.
Fixed the programmable completion code to better handle newlines in lists

of possible completions (e.g., `complete -W').
l.
Removed the reserved words from the `bash-builtins' manual page.
m.
Parser error reporting now attempts to do a better job of identifying the

token in error rather than doing straight textual analysis.
n.
Fixes for Inf/NaN, locales, wide/multibyte characters and zero-length

arguments in the library snprintf(3) replacement.
o.
`read -e' no longer does command name completion on the first word on
the line being read.
p.
`select' now returns failure if the read of the user's selection fails.
q.
Fixed a bug that could cause a core dump when setting $PIPESTATUS.
r.
Fixes to not allocate so many job slots when the shell is running a loop
with job control enabled in a subshell of an interactive shell.
s.
Fixed a bug in the trap code that caused traps to be inherited by

command substitutions in some cases.
t.
Fixed a bug that could cause alias expansion to inappropriately expand

the word following the alias.
u.
Fixed a bug in the `kill' builtin that mishandled negative pid arguments.
v.
The parser is less lenient when parsing assignment statements where the
characters before the `=' don't comprise a valid identifier.
w.
The arithmetic expression evaluation code now honors the setting of the
`-u' option when expanding variable names.
x.
Fixed the arithmetic evaluation code to allow array subscripts to be

assigned (`let b[7]=42') and auto-incremented and auto-decremented
(e.g., b[7]++).
y.
Reimplemented the existing prompt string date and time expansions using
strftime(3), which changed the output of \@ in some locales.
z.
Fixed a bug that could cause a core dump when a special shell variable
(like RANDOM) was converted to an array with a variable assignment.
aa. Fixed a bug that would reset the handler for a signal the user had
trapped to a function that would exit the shell when setting the exit
trap in a non-interactive shell.
bb. Changed the execve(2) wrapper code to check whether or not a failing
command is a directory before looking at whether a `#!' interpreter
failed for some reason.
cc. Fixed a bug in the command printing code so it no longer inserts a `;'
after a newline, which produces a syntax error when reused as input.
dd. The code that expands $PS4 no longer inherits the `-x' flag.
ee. The bash-specific completion functions may now take advantage of the
double-TAB and M-? features of the standard readline completion
functions.
ff. The mail checking code no longer prints a message if the checked file's
size has not increased, even if the access time is less than the
modification time.
gg. Rewrote the variable symbol table code: there is now a stack of
contexts, each possibly including a separate symbol table; there can
be more than one temporary environment supplied to nested invocations
of `./source'; the temporary environments no longer require so much
special-case code; shell functions now handle the temporary environment
and local variables more consistently; function scope exit is faster now
that the entire symbol table does not have to be traversed to dispose of
local variables; it is now easier to push vars from the temporary
environment to the shell's variable table in posix mode; some duplicated
code has been removed.
hh. Regularized the error message printing code; builtin_error is now called
more consistently, and common error message strings are handled by small
functions. This should make eventual message translation easier.
ii. Error messages now include the line number in a script when the shell
is not interactive.
jj. Array subscript expansion now takes place even when the array variable is
unset, so side effects will take place.
kk. Fixed a bug in the SICGHLD child-reaping code so that it won't find
jobs already marked as terminated if the OS reuses pids quickly enough.
ll. Fixed a bug that could cause a signal to not interrupt the `wait'
builtin while it was waiting for a background process to terminate.
mm. A couple of changes to make it easier for multiple shells to share history
files using `history -n', `history -r', and `history -w'.
nn. The `getopts' builtin always increments OPTIND to point to the next
option to be handled when an option is returned, whether it's valid
or not, as POSIX 1003.x-2001 requires.
oo. Changed some parts of the expansion code to avoid allocating and
immediately freeing memory without using the results for anything.
pp. The shell now keeps track of $IFS internally, updating its internal map
each time the variable is assigned a new value (or at local scope exit).
This saves thousands of hash lookups for IFS, which, while individually
cheap, add up.
qq. Rewrote the hash table code: searching and insertion are much faster now,
and it uses a better string hashing function; augmented the function
interface to simplify other parts of the code and remove duplicated code
rr. The shell now uses a simple, generic òbject cache' for allocating and
caching words and word lists, which were the major users of
malloc/free.
ss. Fixed the assignment statement parsing code to allow whitespace and
newlines in subscripts when performing array element assignment.
tt. The shell now issues many fewer calls to sigprocmask and other signal
masking system calls.
uu. Fixed the `test' and conditional command file comparison operators to
work right when one file has a non-positive timestamp and the other
does not exist.
vv. Fixed some cases where the special characters '\001' and '\177' in the
values of variables or positional parameters caused incorrect expansion
results.
2.
Changes to Readline
a.
Fixed output of comment-begin character when listing variable values.
b.
Added some default key bindings for common escape sequences produced by
HOME and END keys.

c.
Fixed the mark handling code to be more emacs-compatible.
d.
A bug was fixed in the code that prints possible completions to keep it
from printing empty strings in certain circumstances.
e.
Change the key sequence printing code to print ESC as M\- if ESC is a
meta-prefix character -- it's easier for users to understand than \e.
f.
Fixed unstifle_history() to return values that match the documentation.
g.
Fixed the event loop (rl_event_hook) to handle the case where the input
file descriptor is invalidated.
h.
Fixed the prompt display code to work better when the application has a
custom redisplay function.
i.
Changes to make reading and writing the history file a little faster, and
to cope with huge history files without calling abort(3) from xmalloc.
j.
The vi-mode `S' and `s' commands are now undone correctly.
3.
a.
If set, TMOUT is the default timeout for the `read' builtin.
b.
`type' has two new options:

`-P' forces a $PATH search.
c.
New code to handle multibyte characters.
d.
`select' was changed to be more ksh-compatible, in that the menu is

reprinted each time through the loop only if REPLY is set to NULL.
The previous behavior is available as a compile-time option.
e.
`complete -d' and `complete -o dirnames' now force a slash to be

appended to names which are symlinks to directories.
f.
There is now a bindable edit-and-execute-command readline command,

like the vi-mode `v' command, bound to C-xC-e in emacs mode.
g.
Added support for ksh93-like [:word:] character class in pattern matching.
h.
The
i.
A new \D{...} prompt expansion; passes the `...' to strftime and inserts
the result into the expanded prompt.
j.
The shell now performs arithmetic in the largest integer size the
machine supports (intmax_t), instead of long.
k.
If a numeric argument is supplied to one of the bash globbing completion

functions, a `*' is appended to the word before expansion is attempted.
l.
The bash globbing completion functions now allow completions to be listed

with double tabs or if `show-all-if-ambiguous' is set.
m.
New `-o nospace' option for `complete' and `compgen' builtins; suppresses
readline's appending a space to the completed word.
n.
New `here-string' redirection operator:
o.
When displaying variables, function attributes and definitions are shown
`-f' suppresses shell function lookup, and
$'...' quoting construct now expands \cX to Control-X.
<<< word.
separately, allowing them to be re-used as input (attempting to re-use

the old output would result in syntax errors).
p.
There is a new configuration option `--enable-mem-scramble', controls

bash malloc behavior of writing garbage characters into memory at
allocation and free time.
q.
The `complete' and `compgen' builtins now have a new `-s/-A service'
option to complete on names from /etc/services.
r.
`read' has a new `-u fd' option to read from a specified file descriptor.
s.
Fix the completion code so that expansion errors in a directory name

don't cause a longjmp back to the command loop.
t.
Fixed word completion inside command substitution to work a little more

intuitively.
u.
The `printf' %q format specifier now uses $'...' quoting to print the
argument if it contains non-printing characters.
v.
The `declare' and `typeset' builtins have a new `-t' option. When applied
to functions, it causes the DEBUG trap to be inherited by the named
function. Currently has no effect on variables.
w.
The DEBUG trap is now run *before* simple commands, ((...)) commands,
[[...]] conditional commands, and for ((...)) loops.
x.
The expansion of $LINENO inside a shell function is only relative to the

function start if the shell is interactive -- if the shell is running a
script, $LINENO expands to the line number in the script. This is as
POSIX-2001 requires.
y.
The bash debugger in examples/bashdb has been modified to work with the
new DEBUG trap semantics, the command set has been made more gdb-like,
and the changes to $LINENO make debugging functions work better. Code
from Gary Vaughan.
z.
New [n]<&word- and [n]>&word- redirections from ksh93 -- move fds (dup
and close).
aa. There is a new `-l' invocation option, equivalent to `--login'.

bb. The `hash' builtin has a new `-l' option to list contents in a reusable
format, and a `-d' option to remove a name from the hash table.
4.
a.
Support for key `subsequences':

be bound to readline functions.
insert mode.
b.
When listing completions, and the number of lines displayed is more than
the screen length, readline uses an internal pager to display the results.
This is controlled by the `page-completions' variable (default on).
c.
New code to handle editing and displaying multibyte characters.
d.
The behavior introduced in bash-2.05a of deciding whether or not to

append a slash to a completed name that is a symlink to a directory has
been made optional, controlled by the `mark-symlinked-directories'
variable (default is the 2.05a behavior).
e.
The ìnsert-comment' command now acts as a toggle if given a numeric
allows, e.g., ESC and ESC-a to both

Now the arrow keys may be used in vi
argument: if the first characters on the line don't specify a

comment, insert one; if they do, delete the comment text
f.
New application-settable completion variable:

rl_completion_mark_symlink_dirs, allows an application's completion
function to temporarily override the user's preference for appending
slashes to names which are symlinks to directories.
g.
New function available to application completion functions:

rl_completion_mode, to tell how the completion function was invoked
and decide which argument to supply to rl_complete_internal (to list
completions, etc.).
h.
Readline now has an overwrite mode, toggled by the òverwrite-mode'

bindable command, which could be bound to Ìnsert'.
i.
New application-settable completion variable:

rl_completion_suppress_append, inhibits appending of
rl_completion_append_character to completed words.
j.
New key bindings when reading an incremental search string: ^W yanks

the currently-matched word out of the current line into the search
string; ^Y yanks the rest of the current line into the search string,
DEL or ^H deletes characters from the search string.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------This document details the changes between this version, bash-2.05a-release,

and the previous version, bash-2.05a-rc1.
1.
Changes to Bash
a.
Fixed the `printf' builtin so that the variable name supplied as an

argument to a %n conversion must be a valid shell identifier.
b.
Improved the random number generator slightly.
c.
Changes to configuration to not put -I/usr/include into $CFLAGS, since

it messes up some includes.
d.
Corrected description of POSIXLY_CORRECT in man page and info manual.
e.
Fixed a couple of cases of incorrect function prototypes that sneaked

through and caused compilation problems.
f.
A few changes to avoid potential core dumps in the programmable completion

code.
g.
Fixed a configure problem that could cause a non-existent file to show

up in LIBOBJS.
h.
Fixed a configure problem that could cause siglist.o to not be built when
required.
i.
Changes to the strtoimax and strtoumax replacement functions to work

around buggy compilers.
j.
Fixed a problem with the snprintf replacement function that could

potentially cause a core dump.
2.
Changes to Readline
a.
Fixed a locale-specific problem in the vi-mode `goto mark' command.
b.
Fixed Makefile to not put -I/usr/include into CFLAGS, since it can cause
include file problems.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------This document details the changes between this version, bash-2.05a-rc1,
and the previous version, bash-2.05a-beta1.
1.
Changes to Bash
a.
Fixed the snprintf replacement to correctly implement the àlternate form'

of the %g and %G conversions.
b.
Fixed snprintf to correctly handle the optional precision with the %g and
%G conversions.
c.
Fixed the arithmetic evaluation code to correct the values of `@' and `_'
when translating base-64 constants (they were backwards).
d.
New library functions for formatting long and long long ints.
e.
Fixed a few places where negative array subscripts could have occurred,
mostly as the result of systems using signed characters.
f.
Fixed a few places that assumed a pid_t was no wider than an int.
g.
Fixed the `maildir' mail checking code to work on systems where a

`struct stat' doesn't include an `st_blocks' member.
h.
Fixed snprintf to make ùnsigned long long' conversion formats (%llu)

work better.
i.
Fixed snprintf to not print a sign when asked to do an unsigned conversion.
j.
Made configure changes to avoid compiling empty source files in lib/sh.
k.
New replacement functions (if necessary) for strtoull, strtoll, strtoimax,

strtoumax.
l.
The `printf' builtin now handles the `ll' and `j' length modifiers
directly, since they can affect the type and width of the argument
passed to printf(3).
m.
Renamed a number of the bash-specific autoconf macros in aclocal.m4 to

have more sytematic naming, with accompanying changes to configure.in.
n.
Fixed snprintf to handle long doubles and the %a/%A conversions by

falling back to sprintf, as long as sprintf supports them.
o.
Fixed return value from vsnprintf/snprintf to be the number of characters

that would have been printed, even if that number exceeds the buffer
size passed as an argument.
p.
Bash no longer attempts to define its own versions of some ctype macros
if they are implemented as functions in libc but not as macros in
<ctype.h>.
q.
Changed the variable printing code (used by `set', èxport', etc.) to

not use the $'...' syntax when in posix mode, since that caused
interoperability problems with other shells (most notably with autoconf).
When not in posix mode, it uses $'...' if the string to be printed
contains non-printing characters and regular single quotes otherwise.
r.
snprintf now recognizes the %F conversion.
s.
Fixed a bug that could cause the wrong status to be returned by a shell
function when the shell is compiled without job control and a null
command containing a command substutition was executed in the function.
t.
When in posix mode, the default value for MAILCHECK is 600.
u.
Bash only initializes FUNCNAME, GROUPS, and DIRSTACK as special variables

if they're not in the initial environment.
v.
If SECONDS appears in the initial environment with a valid integer value,

bash uses that as the starting value, as if an assignment had been
performed.
w.
Bash no longer auto-exports HOME, PATH, SHELL, or TERM, even though it

gives them default values if they don't appear in the initial environment.
x.
Bash no longer auto-exports HOSTNAME, HOSTTYPE, MACHTYPE, or OSTYPE,

even if it assigns them default values.
y.
Bash no longer removes the export attribute from SSH_CLIENT or SSH2_CLIENT

if they appear in the initial environment.
z.
Bash no longer attempts to discover if it's being run by sshd in order to

run the startup files. If the SSH_SOURCE_BASHRC is uncommented in
config-top.h it will attempt to do so as previously, but that's commented
out in the distributed version.
aa. Fixed a typo in the code that tests for LC_NUMERIC.

bb. The POSIXLY_CORRECT shell variable and its effects are now documented.
cc. Some changes to several of the support shell scripts included in the
definitions to try to avoid race conditions and attacks.
dd. Several changes to avoid warnings from `gcc -Wall'.
ee. Fixed a problem with the ùnset' builtin that could cause incorrect
results if asked to unset a variable and an array subscript in the
same command.
ff. A few changes to the shell's temporary file creation code to avoid
potential file descriptor leaks and to prefer the system's idea of
the temporary directory to use.
gg. Fixes to build with the C alloca in lib/malloc/alloca.c if the system
requires it but the shell has been configured --without-bash-malloc.
hh. Updated the documentation to note that only interactive shells resend
SIGHUP to all jobs before exiting.
ii. Fixes to only pass unquoted tilde words to tilde_expand, rather than
rely on tilde_expand or getpwnam(3) to handle the quotes (MacOS 10.x
will remove backslashes in any login name passed to getpwnam(3)).
jj. Small change from Paul Eggert to make LINENO right in commands run with
`bash -c'.
2.
a.
The `printf' builtin now handles the %a and %A conversions if they're

implemented by printf(3).
b.
The `printf' builtin now handles the %F conversion (just about like %f).
c.
The `printf' builtin now handles the %n conversion like printf(3).
The
corresponding argument is the name of a shell variable to which the

value is assigned.
3.
Changes to Readline
a.
Fixed a few places where negative array subscripts could have occurred.
b.
Fixed the vi-mode code to use a better method to determine the bounds of
the array used to hold the marks.
c.
Fixed the defines in chardefs.h to work better when chars are signed.
d.
Fixed configure.in to use the new names for bash autoconf macros.
e.
Readline no longer attempts to define its own versions of some ctype

macros if they are implemented as functions in libc but not as macros in
<ctype.h>.
f.
Fixed a problem where rl_backward could possibly set point to before

the beginning of the line.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------This document details the changes between this version, bash-2.05a-beta1,

and the previous version, bash-2.05a-alpha1.
1.
Changes to Bash
a.
Fixed a bug in the evalution of arithmetic `for' statements when the

expanded expression is NULL.
b.
Fixed an unassigned variable problem in the redirection printing code.
c.
Added more prototypes to extern function declarations in the header

files and to static function declarations in C source files.
d.
Make sure called functions have a prototype in scope, to get the arguments
and return values right instead of casting. Removed extern function
declarations from C source files that were already included in header
files.
e.
Changed some function arguments to use function typedefs in general.h so

the prototypes can be checked. The only use of Function and VFunction
now is for unwind-protects.
f.
More const changes to function arguments and appropriate variables.
g.
Changed the mail checking support to handle `maildir'-style mail

directories.
h.
Augmented the bash malloc to pass in the file and line number information
for each malloc, realloc, and free. This should result in better error
messages.
i.
The òld' gnu malloc is no longer a configuration option.
j.
Augmented the bash malloc with optional tracing and registering allocated
and freed memory.
k.
Prompt string decoding now saves and restores the value of $? when it
expands the prompt string, so command substitutions don't change $?.
i.
Array indices are now `long', since shell arithmetic is performed as long,
and the internal arrayind_t type is used consistently.
j.
Some more ùnsigned char *' fixes from Paul Eggert.
k.
Fixed a bad call to builtin_error that could cause core dumps when making
local variables.
l.
`return' may no longer be used to terminate a `select' command, for

compatibility with ksh.
m.
Changed code that reads octal numbers to do a better job of detecting

overflows.
n.
The time formatting code no longer uses absolute indices into a buffer,
because the buffer size changes depending on the size of a `time_t'.
o.
ùmask' now prints four digits when printing in octal mode, for
compatibility with other shells.
p.
Lots of changes to the `printf' builtin from Paul Eggert: it handles `L'
formats and long doubles better, and internal functions have been
simpified where appropriate.
q.
Some `time_t' fixes for machines were a time_t is bigger than a long.
r.
Replaced some bash-specific autoconf macros with standard equivalents.
s.
Improvmed the code that constructs temporary filenames to make the

generated names a bit more random.
t.
Added code that checks for ascii before calling any of the is* ctype
functions.
u.
Changed some places where a `char' was used as an array subscript to use
ùnsigned char', since a `char' can be negative if it's signed by default.
v.
Lots of changes to the ùlimit' builtin from Paul Eggert to add support
for the new POSIX-200x RLIM_SAVED_CUR and RLIM_SAVED_MAX values and
simplify the code.
w.
ùlimit' now prints the description of a resource in any error message

relating to fetching or setting that resource's limits.
x.
The `snprintf' replacement now computes maximum values at compile

time rather than using huge constants for things like long long.
y.
Interactive shells now ignore `set -n'.
z.
Changed the malloc bookkeeping information so that it's now 8 bytes

instead of 12 on most 32-bit machines (saving 4 bytes per allocation),
restoring 8-byte alignment.
aa. The malloc error reporting code now attempts to print the file and line
number of the call that caused the error.
bb. Changed the redirection error reporting code to catch EBADF errors and
report the file descriptor number rather than the file being redirected
to or from (e.g., things like èxec 4242<x' where 4242 is an out-of-range
file descriptor).
cc. `printf', ècho -e', and the $'...' code now process only two hex digits
after a `\x' escape sequence for compatibility with other shells, and
the documentation was changed to note that the octal and hex escape
sequences result in an eight-bit value rather than strict ASCII.
2.
Changes to Readline
a.
The completion code now attempts to do a better job of preserving the

case of the word the user typed if ignoring case in completions.
b.
Readline defaults to not echoing the input and lets the terminal
initialization code enable echoing if there is a controlling terminal.
c.
The key binding code now processes only two hex digits after a `\x'
escape sequence, and the documentation was changed to note that the
octal and hex escape sequences result in an eight-bit value rather
than strict ASCII.
3.
a.
The builtin ùlimit' now takes two new non-numeric arguments: `hard',
meaning the current hard limit, and `soft', meaning the current soft
limit, in addition to ùnlimited'
b.
ùlimit' now prints the option letter associated with a particular

resource when printing more than one limit.
c.
ùlimit' prints `hard' or `soft' when a value is not ùnlimited' but is

one of RLIM_SAVED_MAX or RLIM_SAVED_CUR, respectively.
4.
a.
New bindable variable `history-preserve-point'. If set, the history

code attempts to place the user at the same location on each history
line retrived with previous-history or next-history.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------This document details the changes between this version, bash-2.05a-alpha1,

1.
Changes to Bash
a.
Better checks in the redirection code for write errors.
b.
bashbug now uses $TMPDIR, defaulting to /tmp, and uses mktemp(1) more
portably.
c.
System-specific configuration changes for:

MacOS X.
d.
Some more `const' cleanups through the code.
e.
Fixed a typo in the /dev/fd redirection code, better checks for valid
numeric fds in /dev/fd.
f.
Fixed many parts of the shell to handle integer overflow more gracefully
and to do more stringent checks for valid numbers.
g.
Fixed mksignames to include config.h.
h.
Fixed an uninitialized variable problem that could cause the shell to core
dump when replacing characters in a string.
i.
New mechanism for updating the patch level when official patches are
released (patchlevel.h).
j.
configure.in changed to no longer require external files _distribution and

_patchlevel.
k.
Fixed non-interactive shell initialization problem when bash started as
Interix, OpenBSD, FreeBSD,
`bash -i filename'.
l.
Fixed printf builtin conversion error handling to be POSIX.2-conformant.
m.
autoconf-2.52 is now used to build configure; autoconf-2.50 or newer is

required. Some of the bash-specific macros were removed, since they are
now standard.
n.
Startup files and files read with source or `.' are no longer required to
be regular files.
o.
Fixed core dump in builtin printf when user-supplied precision or field

width is 0.
p.
Fixed builtin printf to treat a negative field width as a positive field

width with left-justification.
r.
New unwind-protect implementation from Paul Eggert.
s.
Fixed an inadvertently-unclosed comment in the bash completion code that

caused programmable completions to not add trailing slashes or spaces to
completions.
t.
Fixed the process substitution code to cope better when stdin is closed.
v.
Fixes, mostly from Paul Eggert, for a few possible buffer overflows in
the shell.
w.
Fixes from Paul Eggert to avoid most of the type casts in the shell code,
and use more appropriate types for a number of variables.
x.
Command substition no longer inherits the DEBUG trap.
y.
Some fixes to the process substition code on machines without /dev/fd so

that named pipes are not removed inappropriately.
z.
The loadable `getconf' builtin is now much more complete, and will become
part of the shell in the future.
aa. The select command no longer terminates on a `return', so it can be used

to return from an enclosing function (as ksh does it).
bb. Fixed the extended pattern matching code to behave better when presented
with incorrectly-formed patterns.
cc. Some changes were made with the intent of making cross-compilation easier.
dd. The network code (/dev/tcp and /dev/udp redirections) uses getaddrinfo(3)
if it's available, which adds support for IPv6.
ee. Subshells of login shells no longer source ~/.bash_logout when they exit.
ff. Fixes so that subshells don't exit inappropriately if the -e option has
been set.
gg. Restricted shells no longer allow functions to be exported.
hh. Changes to the pattern matching code so extended pattern matching works
on systems with deficient shared library implementations, like MacOS X.
ii. Better error messages when a script with a leading `#!interp' fails
to execute because of problems with ìnterp'.
jj. Fixed `compgen' to handle the `-o default' option better.
kk. Fixed the job control code to force an asynchronous process's standard
input to /dev/null only if job control is not active.
ll. Fixed a possible infinite recursion problem when `fc ""=abc' (a null
pattern) is used to re-execute a previous command.
mm. Fixed `declare [-a] var=value' to assign VALUE to element 0 if VAR is an
array variable. Similarly for `declare [-a] var[N]=value'. This is like
ksh93.
nn. Fixed a bug that caused `read -a aname' to work even if ANAME had been
declared readonly.
oo. Fixed a possible integer overflow problem when constructing names for
temporary files.
2.
a.
Added support for DESTDIR installation root prefix, so you can do a

`make install DESTDIR=bash-root' and do easier binary packaging.
b.
Added support for builtin printf "'" flag character as per latest POSIX
drafts.
c.
Support for POSIX.2 printf(1) length specifiers `j', `t', and `z' (from
ISO C99).
d.
New autoconf macro, RL_LIB_READLINE_VERSION, for use by other applications

(bash doesn't use very much of what it returns).
e.
`set [-+]o nolog' is recognized as required by the latest POSIX drafts,

but ignored.
f.
New read-only `shopt' option:

shell is a login shell.
g.
New `\A' prompt string escape sequence; expands to time in 24 HH:MM format.
h.
New `-A group/-g' option to complete and compgen; does group name
completion.
i.
New `-t' option to `hash' to list hash values for each filename argument.
j.
New [-+]O invocation option to set and unset `shopt' options at startup.
k.
configure's `--with-installed-readline' option now takes an optional

`=PATH' suffix to set the root of the tree where readline is installed
to PATH.
l.
The ksh-like ÈRR' trap has been added. The ÈRR' trap will be run
whenever the shell would have exited if the -e option were enabled.
It is not inherited by shell functions.
m.
`readonly', èxport', and `declare' now print variables which have been
given attributes but not set by assigning a value as just a command and
a variable name (like èxport foo') when listing, as the latest POSIX
drafts require.
n.
`bashbug' now requires that the subject be changed from the default.
o.
configure has a new `--enable-largefile' option, like other GNU utilities.
p.
`for' loops now allow empty word lists after ìn', like the latest POSIX
login_shell.
Set to non-zero value if the
drafts require.
3.
Changes to Readline
a.
More `const' and type casting fixes.
b.
Changed rl_message() to use vsnprintf(3) (if available) to fix buffer

overflow problems.
c.
The completion code no longer appends a `/' or ` ' to a match when

completing a symbolic link that resolves to a directory name, unless
the match does not add anything to the word being completed. This
means that a tab will complete the word up to the full name, but not
add anything, and a subsequent tab will add a slash.
d.
Fixed a trivial typo that made the vi-mode `dT' command not work.
e.
Fixed the tty code so that ^S and ^Q can be inserted with rl_quoted_insert.
f.
Fixed the tty code so that ^V works more than once.
g.
Changed the use of __P((...)) for function prototypes to PARAMS((...))

because the use of __P in typedefs conflicted g++ and glibc.
4.
a.
Added extern declaration for rl_get_termcap to readline.h, making it a

public function (it was always there, just not in readline.h).
b.
New #defines in readline.h: RL_READLINE_VERSION, currently 0x0402,

RL_VERSION_MAJOR, currently 4, and RL_VERSION_MINOR, currently 2.
c.
New readline variable:
d.
New bindable boolean readline variable: match-hidden-files. Controls

completion of files beginning with a `.' (on Unix). Enabled by default.
e.
The history expansion code now allows any character to terminate a

`:first-' modifier, like csh.
f.
The incremental search code remembers the last search string and uses
it if ^R^R is typed without a search string.
rl_readline_version, mirrors RL_READLINE_VERSION.

1.
Changes to Bash
a.
Make sure we note that the first line of a multi-line command was not
saved in the history if the tests for HISTCONTROL succeed, but the
HISTIGNORE check fails.
b.
Fixed a bug in the pattern matching code that caused `[' to be treated
as a special character inside a `[...]' bracket expression.
c.
Fixed a bug in the pattern matching code that caused `]' to terminate
a bracket expression even if it was the first character after the `['
(or a leading `!' or `^').
d.
Made a small change to report a more user-friendly error message if

execve(2) fails because of an error with the interpreter in a script
with a leading `#! interpreter'.
e.
If the OS does not support an exec(2) magic number of `#!', make sure we
have a non-null interpreter name before attempting to execute it.
f.
Fixed a bug that caused the shell process to end up in a different

process group than the controlling terminal if a job-control shell was
run with èxec' in the startup files.
g.
When started in POSIX mode, either by `bash --posix', `bash -o posix', or

`sh', $SHELLOPTS includes `posix' and POSIXLY_CORRECT is set.
h.
Fixed a problem that caused the `\W' prompt string escape sequence to
expand to nothing when $PWD was `//'.
i.
The `bashbug' shell script no longer uses $(...) command substitution.
j.
When `set' is invoked without options in POSIX mode, it no longer prints

the names and definitions of shell functions.
2.
Changes to Readline
a.
rl_set_paren_blink_timeout() is now documented.
b.
Corrected history.3 man page: `$' is not in the default value of

history_word_delimiters.
c.
If a hook function assigned to rl_event_hook sets rl_done to a non-zero

value, rl_read_key() now immediately returns '\n' (which is assumed to
be bound to accept-line).
3.
a.
The `>&word' redirection now works in POSIX mode as it does by default,

since POSIX.2 leaves it unspecified.

1.
Changes to Bash
a.
Fixed a bug in the arithmetic evaluation code so that a^=b is supported.
b.
Fixed startup so posixly_correct is retained across subshells begun to

execute scripts without a leading `#!'.
c.
Fixed a bug that caused $(< file) to not work in a (...) subshell.
d.
Added config support for Linux running on the IBM S390.
e.
Fixed a bug that caused bash to get its input pointer out of sync when
reading commands through a pipe and running a command with standard
input redirected from a file.
f.
Made a change so that command completion now makes about half as many
stat(2) calls when searching the $PATH.
g.
Fixed a bug that caused variable assignments preceding `return' to not

be propagated to the shell environment in POSIX mode.
h.
Fixed a bug with ${parameter[:]?word} -- tilde expansion was not performed

on `word'.
i.
In POSIX mode, `break' and `continue' do not complain and return success
if called when the shell is not executing a loop.
j.
Fixed `bash -o posix' to work the same as `bash --posix'.
k.
Fixed a bug where variable assignments preceding èval' or `source/.'

would not show up in the environment exported to subshells run by the
commands.
l.
In POSIX mode, shells started to execute command substitutions inherit

the value of the `-e' option from their parent shell.
m.
In POSIX mode, aliases are expanded even in non-interactive shells.
n.
Changed some of the job control messages to display the text required by
POSIX.2 when the shell is in POSIX mode.
o.
Fixed a bug in `test' that caused it to occasionally return incorrect

results when non-numeric arguments were supplied to `-t'.
2.
Changes to Readline
a.
Some changes were made to avoid gcc warnings with -Wall.
b.
rl_get_keymap_by_name now finds keymaps case-insensitively, so

`set keymap EMACS' works.
c.
The history file writing and truncation functions now return a useful
status on error.
d.
Fixed a bug that could cause applications to dereference a NULL pointer

if a NULL second argument was passed to history_expand().
3.
a.
doc/readline.3 has been moved to the readline distribution.
4.
a.
New function, rl_get_screen_size (int *rows, int *columns), returns

readline's idea of the screen dimensions.
b.
The timeout in rl_gather_tyi (readline keyboard input polling function)

is now settable via a function (rl_set_keyboard_input_timeout()).
c.
Renamed the max_input_history variable to history_max_entries; the old

variable is maintained for backwards compatibility.
d.
The list of characters that separate words for the history tokenizer is
now settable with a variable: history_word_delimiters. The default
value is as before.

1.
Changes to Bash
a.
Changes to allow shared library and object building on the GNU Hurd.
b.
Fixes to the way exported functions are placed into the environment and
cached.
c.
The globbing library once again respects locales when processing ranges
in bracket expressions while doing pattern matching.
d.
System-specific configuration changes for:
Tru 64, Interix
e.
Bashbug now uses /usr/bin/editor as one of the editing alternatives, and

will use mktemp(1) or tempfile(1), if present, for temporary file creation.
f.
Bash no longer performs a binary file check on a script argument that's

really a tty (like /dev/fd/0 or /dev/stdin).
g.
Fixed a bug in the execution of shell scripts that caused the effects of
$BASH_ENV to be undone in some cases.
h.
Fixed several bugs that made `bash [-i] /dev/stdin' not work correctly.
i.
Several changes to the job control code to avoid some signal state
manipulation.
j.
The Bash malloc no longer blocks signals as often, which should make it
faster.
k.
Fixed a parsing bug that did not allow backslash to escape a single quote
inside a $'...' construct.
l.
Fixed a bug that caused things like ${var:=$'value'} to be parsed

incorrectly. This showed up in newer versions of autoconf.
m.
Fixed a bug in the bash-specific readline initialization that caused

key bindings to bash-specific function names appearing in .inputrc to
not be honored.
n.
Bash now sets the file descriptor it uses to save the file descriptor
opened on a shell script to close on exec.
o.
Fixed a bug in the prompt string decoding that caused it to misbehave

when presented an octal sequence of fewer than three characters.
p.
Fixed the `test' builtin to return an error if `[' is supplied a single

argument that is not `]'.
q.
Fixed a bug that caused subshells started to run executable shell scripts
without a leading `#!' to incorrectly inherit an argument list preceding
a shell builtin (like such a script called from a script sourced with `.',
where there were variable assignments preceding the `.' command)
r.
Fixed a bug that caused changes to variables supplied in an assignment

statement preceding a shell builtin to not be honored (like a script
run with `.').
s.
HOSTTYPE, OSTYPE, and MACHTYPE are set only if they do not have values
when the shell is started.
t.
Fixed a bug that caused SIGINT to kill shell scripts after the script
called `wait'.
u.
The `fc' builtin now tries to create its temporary files in the directory
named by $TMPDIR.
v.
Bash no longer calls any Readline functions or uses any Readline variables
not declared in readline.h.
w.
Fixed a bug that caused some substitutions involving $@ to not be split

correctly, especially expansions of the form ${paramterOPword}.
x.
SSH2_CLIENT is now treated like SSH_CLIENT and not auto-exported if it

appears in the initial environment.
y.
Fixed a couple of problems with shell scripts without a leading `#!'

being executed out of shell functions that could cause core dumps if
such a script attempted to execute `return'.
z.
Fixed a problem with the `-nt' and `-ot' binary operators for the
`test/[' builtin and the `[[' conditional command that caused wrong
return values if one of the file arguments did not exist.
aa. Fixed a bug that caused non-interactive shells which had previously
executed `shopt -s expand_aliases' to fail to expand aliases in a
command like `(command) &'.
2.
Changes to Readline
a.
Changes to make most (but not yet all -- there is still crlf()) of the
exported readline functions declared in readline.h have an rl_ prefix.
b.
More `const' changes in function arguments, mostly for completion

functions.
c.
Fixed a bug in rl_forward that could cause the point to be set to before
the beginning of the line in vi mode.
d.
Fixed a bug in the callback read-char interface to make it work when a

readline function pushes some input onto the input stream with
rl_execute_next (like the incremental search functions).
e.
Fixed a file descriptor leak in the history file manipulation code that
was tripped when attempting to truncate a non-regular file (like
/dev/null).
f.
Some existing variables are now documented and part of the public
interface (declared in readline.h): rl_explict_arg, rl_numeric_arg,
rl_editing_mode, rl_last_func.
g.
Renamed rltty_set_default_bindings to rl_tty_set_default_bindings and

crlf to rl_crlf, so there are no public functions declared in readline.h
without an `rl_' prefix. The old functions still exist for backwards
compatibility.
3.
a.
A new loadable builtin, realpath, which canonicalizes and expands symlinks

in pathname arguments.
b.
When `set' is called without options, it prints function defintions in a

way that allows them to be reused as input. This affects `declare' and
`declare -p' as well.
4.
a.
New application-callable function rl_set_prompt(const char *prompt):

expands its prompt string argument and sets rl_prompt to the result.
b.
New application-callable function rl_set_screen_size(int rows, int cols):

public method for applications to set readline's idea of the screen
dimensions.
c.
The history example program (examples/histexamp.c) is now built as one

of the examples.

1.
Changes to Bash
a.
A fix was made to allow newlines in compond array assignments.
b.
configure now checks for real-time signals with unusable values.
c.
Interactive shells no longer exit if a substitution fails because of an

unset variable within a sourced file.
d.
Fixed a problem with incorrect matching of extended glob patterns when

doing pattern substitution.
e.
`{' is now quoted by the completion code when it appears in a filename.
f.
Fixed an error in pattern matching that caused the matcher to not

correctly skip the rest of a bracket expression after a character
matched.
g.
Fixed a bug in the IFS word splitting code to make a non-whitespace IFS
character preceded by IFS whitespace part of the current delimiter rather
than generating a separate field.
h.
The {!prefix@} expansion now generates separate words, analogous to $@,

when double-quoted.
i.
Command substitution now ignores NUL bytes in the command output, and the
parser ignores them on input.
j.
A fix was made to the job control code to prevent hanging processes when
the shell thinks background processes are running but the kernel returns
-1/ECHILD from waitpid().
k.
`pwd' now prints an error message if the write fails when displaying the
current directory.
l.
When in POSIX mode, the shell prints trap dispostions without a leading
`SIG' in the signal specification.
m.
Fixed a parser bug that caused the current command's line count to be
messed up by a compound array assignment.
n.
Fixed a bug in the unwind-protect code that caused bad behavior on machines
where ints and pointers are not the same size.
o.
System-specific configure changes for:
p.
Changes for Cygwin to translate \r\n and \r to \n and to set file

descriptors used for reading input to text mode in various places.
q.
Fixed a bug that caused `!' to occasionally not be honored when in

a (...) subshell.
r.
Bash no longer assumes that getcwd() will return any useful error message
in the buffer passed as an argument if the call fails.
s.
The `source', `.', and `fc' builtins no longer check whether a file is
binary before reading commands from it.
t.
Subshells no longer turn off job control when they exit, since that
sometimes resulted in the terminal being reset to the wrong process
group.
MacOS X.
u.
The history code no longer tries to save the second and subsequent lines
of a multi-line command if the first line was not saved.
v.
The history saving code now does a better job of saving blank lines in a
multi-line command.
w.
Removed a `feature' that made ùlimit' silently translate ùnlimited' to

the current hard limit, which obscured some kernel error returns.
x.
Fixed the grammar so that `}' is recognized as a reserved word after

another reserved word, rather than requiring a `;' or newline. This
means that constructs like
{ { echo a b c ; } }
work as expected.
y.
Conditional commands ([[...]]) now perform tilde expansion on their

arguments.
z.
Noted in the documentation that `set -a' will cause functions to be

exported if they are defined after `set -a' is executed.
aa. When an interactive login shell starts, if $PWD and $HOME refer to the
same directory but are not the same string, $PWD is set to $HOME.
bb. Fixed `printf' to handle invalid floating point numbers better.
cc. Temporary files are now created with random filenames, to improve security.
dd. The readline initialization code now binds the custom bash functions and
key bindings after the readline defaults are set up.
ee. Fixed the `source' builtin to no longer overwrite a shell function's
argument list, even if the sourced file changes the positional parameters.
ff. A bug fix was made in the expansion of `$*' in contexts where it should
not be split, like assignment statements.
gg. Fixed a bug in the parameter substring expansion to handle conditional
arithmetic expressions ( exp ? val1 : val2 ) without cutting the expression
off at the wrong `:'.
hh. The `<>' redirection is no longer subject to the current setting of
`noclobber', as POSIX.2 specifies.
ii. Fixed a bug in the conditional command parsing code that caused expressions
in parentheses to occasionally be parsed incorrectly.
jj. Fixed a bug in the ((...)) arithmetic command to allow do...done or
{...} to follow the )) without an intervening list terminator.
kk. `printf' now treats `\E' the same as `\e' when performing backslash escape
expansion for the `%b' format specifier.
ll. When in POSIX mode, the shell no longer searches the current directory for
a file to be sourced with `.' or `source' if `.' is not in $PATH.
mm. Interactive comments are no longer turned off when POSIX mode is disabled.
nn. The UID, EUID, HOSTNAME variables are not set if they are in the shell's
environment when it starts up.
oo. Fixed a bug in the `command' builtin so the effect of a command like
`command exec 4<file' is as if the `command' had been omitted.

pp. ${foo[@]} and ${foo[*]} now work as in ksh93 if `foo' is not an array
variable.
qq. ${#foo[X]}, where X is 0, @, or *, now work as in ksh93 if `foo' is not
an array variable.
rr. The shell's idea of an absolute pathname now takes into account a
possible drive specification on Cygwin and other Windows systems.
ss. Fixed a bug which caused incorrect parsing of some multi-character
constructs if they were split across input lines with backslash-newline
line continuation.
tt. Fixed a bug that caused restricted shell mode to be set inappropriately
when trying to execute a shell script without a leading `#!'.
uu. Shell function definitions no longer require that the body be a group
command ( {...} ), as POSIX.2 requires.
vv. The `cd' and `pwd' builtins now process symlinks in pathnames internally
and should require many fewer calls to getcwd().
ww. Fixed a bug that caused a pipeline's process group to be set incorrectly
if one of the pipeline elements contained a command substitution.
xx. Fixed a bug that caused core dumps when expanding the value of HISTIGNORE.
yy. The output of `set' is now quoted using $'...' so invisible characters are
displayed as escape sequences.
zz. Fixed the help text for ùnset', since PATH and IFS may both be unset.
aaa. The shell no longer puts directory names into the command hash table.
bbb. Fixed a bug in `read' that caused it to occasionally free memory twice if
it was interrupted after reading a large amount of data.
ccc. Assignment statements that attempt to assign values to readonly variables
now cause the command to return an error status.
ddd. Fixed a bug that could cause incorrect output if a $(<file) construct was
interrupted.
eee. GROUPS and FUNCNAME now return an error status when assignment is
attempted, but may be unset (in which case they lose their special
properties). In all respects except unsetting, they are readonly.
fff. The string-to-integer conversion code now ignores trailing whitespace in
the string, even if strtol(3) does not.
ggg. The tcsh magic-space function now does a better job of inserting the
space close to where the point was before the history expansion, rather
than just appending it.
hhh. Fixed a bug which caused a file sourced from an interactive shell to
fill up the jobs table if it ran lots of jobs.
iii. Fixed a bug in the parameter pattern substitution code to avoid infinite
recursion on zero-length matches.
2.
Changes to Readline
a.
When setting the terminal attributes on systems using `struct termio',

readline waits for output to drain before changing the attributes.
b.
A fix was made to the history word tokenization code to avoid attempts to
dereference a null pointer.
c.
Readline now defaults rl_terminal_name to $TERM if the calling application

has left it unset, and tries to initialize with the resultant value.
d.
Instead of calling (*rl_getc_function)() directly to get input in certain

places, readline now calls rl_read_key() consistently.
e.
Fixed a bug in the completion code that allowed a backslash to quote a

single quote inside a single-quoted string.
f.
rl_prompt is no longer assigned directly from the argument to readline(),

but uses memory allocated by readline. This allows constant strings to
be passed to readline without problems arising when the prompt processing
code wants to modify the string.
g.
Fixed a bug that caused non-interactive history searches to return the

wrong line when performing multiple searches backward for the same string.
h.
Many variables, function arguments, and function return values are now
declared `const' where appropriate, to improve behavior when linking with
C++ code.
i.
The control character detection code now works better on systems where
`char' is unsigned by default.
j.
The vi-mode numeric argument is now capped at 999999, just like emacs mode.
k.
The Function, CPFunction, CPPFunction, and VFunction typedefs have been

replaced with a set of specific prototyped typedefs, though they are
still in the readline header files for backwards compatibility.
m.
Nearly all of the (undocumented) internal global variables in the library

now have an _rl_ prefix -- there were a number that did not, like
screenheight, screenwidth, alphabetic, etc.
n.
The ding() convenience function has been renamed to rl_ding(), though the
old function is still defined for backwards compatibility.
o.
The completion convenience functions filename_completion_function,

username_completion_function, and completion_matches now have an rl_
prefix, though the old names are still defined for backwards compatibility.
p.
The functions shared by readline and bash (linkage is satisfied from bash
when compiling with bash, and internally otherwise) now have an sh_ prefix.
q.
Changed the shared library creation procedure on Linux and BSD/OS 4.x so
that the `soname' contains only the major version number rather than the
major and minor numbers.
r.
Fixed a redisplay bug that occurred when the prompt spanned more than one
physical line and contained invisible characters.
3.
a.
Added a new `--init-file' invocation argument as a synonym for `--rcfile',

per the new GNU coding standards.
b.
The /dev/tcp and /dev/udp redirections now accept service names as well as
port numbers.
c.
`complete' and `compgen' now take a `-o value' option, which controls some
of the aspects of that compspec. Valid values are:
default - perform bash default completion if programmable
completion produces no matches
dirnames - perform directory name completion if programmable
completion produces no matches
filenames - tell readline that the compspec produces filenames,
so it can do things like append slashes to
directory names and suppress trailing spaces
4.
a.
The blink timeout for paren matching is now settable by applications.
b.
_rl_executing_macro has been renamed to rl_executing_macro, which means

it's now part of the public interface.
c.
Readline has a new variable, rl_readline_state, which is a bitmap that

encapsulates the current state of the library; intended for use by
callbacks and hook functions.

1.
Changes to Bash
a.
Better compile-time and configure-time checks for the necessity of

inet_aton().
b.
A bug was fixed in the expansion of "${@:-}" when there are positional
parameters.
c.
A typo was fixed in the output of `complete'.
d.
The matches generated for a word by the `-W' argument to complete and
compgen are now matched against the word being completed, and only
matches are returned as the result.
e.
Some fixes were made for systems which do not restart read(2) when a
signal caught by bash is received.
f.
A bug was fixed which caused the umask to be set to 0 when an invalid
symbolic mode mask was parsed.
g.
Fixed a bug that could cause a core dump if a SIGCHLD was received while
performing an assignment statement using command substitution.
h.
Changed the word splitting function for programmable completion so cases

in which the cursor is between words are handled a bit better.
2.
Changes to Readline
a.
rl_funmap_names() is now documented.
3.
a.
The LC_NUMERIC variable is now treated specially, and used to set the
LC_NUMERIC locale category for number formatting, e.g., when `printf'
displays floating-point numbers.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
This document details the changes between this version, bash-2.04-beta5,

1.
Changes to Bash
a.
A couple of changes were made to the Makefiles for easier building on

non-Unix systems.
b.
Fixed a bug where the current prompt would be set to $PS2 at startup.
c.
The shell script that tests an already-installed version was changed to

remove the directory it created its test programs in at exit.
d.
Several changes were made to the code that tokenizes an input line for
the programmable completion code. Shell metacharacters will now appear
as individual words in the word list passed to the completion functions.
Some of the example completion shell functions were changed to understand
redirection operators.
e.
A bug was fixed that, under obscure circumstances, could confuse the
parser when a shell function was run by the programmable completion code.
f.
A bug was fixed in the ulimit builtin for systems not using getrlimit().
g.
The execution code now propagates the correct exit status back to the rest
of the code if the return value of a subshell command was being inverted.
Some new test cases for inverting return values with the `!' reserved
word have been added.
h.
Negative exponents in the arithmetic evaluation of v**e now return an

evaluation error.
i.
A bug that caused bash to check the wrong process in a pipeline for
abnormal termination (and consequently resetting the terminal attributes)
was fixed.
j.
Fixed a bug that caused $PS2 to be displayed after PROMPT_COMMAND was

executed.
2.
Changes to Readline
1.
Fixed a bug in a C preprocessor define that caused the keypad control

functions to be compiled out for all platforms except DJGPP.

1.
Changes to Bash
a.
A couple of changes were made to the redirection to attempt to avoid

race conditions and malicious file replacement.
2.
A change was made to the string evaluation code (used for command
substitution, èval', and the `.' builtin) to fix an obscure core
dump on alpha machines.
3.
A bug that caused $LINENO to be wrong when executing arithmetic for

commands was fixed.
4.
A couple of memory leaks in the programmable completion code were fixed.
5.
A bug that could cause a core dump by freeing memory twice during a call
to èval' if `set -u' had been enabled and an undefined variable was
referenced was fixed.

1.
Changes to Bash
a.
Bash should run the appropriate startup files when invoked by ssh2.
b.
Fixed a bug in the parsing of conditional commands that could cause a

core dump.
c.
Fixed a bug in parsing job specifications that occasionally caused

core dumps when an out-of-range job was referenced.
d.
Fixed the `type' and `command' builtins to do better reporting of

commands that are not found in $PATH or the hash table.
e.
Fixed a POSIX.2 compliance problem in the command builtin -- commands

are supposed to be reported as full pathnames.
f.
The ècho' builtin now returns failure if a write error occurs.
g.
Fixed a bug which caused the locale to not be reset correctly when
LC_ALL was unset.
h.
Changed description of `getopts' in man page and reference manual to make

it clear that option characters may be characters other than letters.
i.
If the shell exits while in a function, make sure that any trap on EXIT
doesn't think the function is still executing.
j.
Bashbug now tries harder to find a usable editor if $EDITOR is not set,
rather than simply defaulting to èmacs'.
k.
Changes to the scripts that guess and canonicalize the system type, from
the latest àutomake' distribution via Debian.
l.
When using named pipes for process substitution, make sure the file
descriptors opened for reading are set to non-blocking mode.
m.
Fixed a bug that caused termination of pipelines that are killed by a

signal to not be reported in some cases.
n.
When not in literal-history mode, shell comment lines are not added to
the history list.
o.
When running in POSIX.2 mode, bash no longer performs word splitting on

the expanded value of the word supplied as the filename argument to
redirection operators.
p.
The prompt string decoding code now backslash-quotes only characters that
are special within double quotes when expanding the \w and \W escape
sequences.
q.
Fixed a bug in the prompt decoding code that could cause a non-interactive
shell to seg fault if `\u' was used in PS4 and the shell was in xtrace
mode.
r.
Fixed a bug that caused function definitions to be printed with any

redirections that should be attached to the entire function before the
closing brace.
s.
Changed the tilde expansion code for Cygwin systems to avoid creating
pathnames beginning with `//' if $HOME == `/'.
t.
Fixed a couple of autoconf tests to avoid creating files with fixed names
in /tmp.
u.
The `trap' and `kill' builtins now know the names of the POSIX.1b realtime signals on systems which support them.
2.
Changes to Readline
a.
Fixed a problem with the single-quote quoting function that could cause
buffer overflows.
b.
Fixed a bug that caused incorrect `stat characters' to be printed if

the files being completed were in the root directory and visible-stats
was enabled.
3.
a.
There is a new `rbash.1' manual page, from the Debian release.
b.
The `--enable-usg-echo-default' option to `configure' has been renamed to

`--enable-xpg-echo-default'. The old option is still there for backwards
compatibility.

1.
Changes to Bash
a.
Fixed a bug that could cause pipes to be closed inappropriately in

some obscure cases.
b.
Fixed a bug that caused creation of the exported environment to clobber

the current command string if there were any exported shell functions.
c.
Some changes were made to reduce bash's memory usage.
d.
Fixed a problem with programmable completion and filenames to be

completed containing quote characters.
e.
Changed the code the removes named pipes created for the <(...) and >(...)
expansions to defer removal until after any current shell function has
finished executing.
f.
Fixed a bug in `select' which caused it to not handle the `continue'

builtin correctly.
g.
Autoconf tests added for cygwin32 and mingw32.
2.
a.
The `--with-bash-malloc' configure option replaces `--with-gnu-malloc'

(which is still there for backwards compatibility).

1.
Changes to Bash
a.
Fixed a bug in the programmable completion code that occurred when
trying to complete command lines containing a `;' or `@'.

b.
The file descriptor from which the shell is reading a script is now
moved to a file descriptor above the user-addressible range.
c.
Changes to `printf' so that it can handle integers beginning with 0

or 0x as octal and hex, respectively.
d.
Fixes to the programmable completion code so it handles nonsense like

`compgen -C xyz' gracefully.
e.
The shell no longer modifies the signal handler for SIGPROF, allowing
profiling again on certain systems.
f.
The shell checks for a new window size, if the user has requested it,
after a process exits due to a signal.
g.
Fixed a bug with variables with null values in a program's temporary

environment and the bash getenv() replacement.
h.
`declare' and the other builtins that take variable assignments as

arguments now honor `set -a' and mark modified variables for export.
i.
Some changes were made for --dump-po-strings mode when writing strings
with embedded newlines.
j.
The code that caches export strings from the initial environment now
duplicates the string rather than just pointing into the environment.
k.
The filename completion quoting code now uses single quotes by default
if the filename being completed contains newlines, since \<newline>
has a special meaning to the parser.
l.
Bash now uses typedefs bits32_t and u_bits32_t instead of int32_t and
u_int32_t, respectively to avoid conflicts on certain Unix versions.
m.
Configuration changes were made for: Rhapsody, Mac OS, FreeBSD-3.x.
n.
Fixed a problem with hostname-to-ip-address translation in the

/dev/(tcp|udp)/hostname/port redirection code.
o.
The texinfo manual has been reorganized slightly.
p.
Filename generation (globbing) range comparisons in bracket expressions

no longer use strcoll(3) even if it is available, since it has unwanted
effects in certain locales.
q.
Fixed a cosmetic problem in the source that caused the shell to not
compile if DPAREN_ARITHMETIC was not defined but ARITH_FOR_COMMAND was.
r.
Fixed a bug in the here-document code tripped when the file descriptor
opened to the file containing the text of the here document was the
same as a redirector specified by the user.
s.
Fixed a bug where the INVERT_RETURN flag was not being set for `pipeline'
in `time ! pipeline'.
t.
Fixed a bug with the `wait' builtin which manifested itself when an
interrupt was received while the shell was waiting for asynchronous
processes in a shell script.
u.
Fixed the DEBUG trap code so that it has the correct value of $?.
v.
Fixed a bug in the parameter pattern substitution code that could cause
the shell to attempt to free unallocated memory if the pattern started

with `/' and an expansion error occurs.
w.
Fixed a bug in the positional parameter substring code that could

cause the shell to loop freeing freed memory.
x.
Fixed a bug in the positional parameter pattern substitution code so

that it correctly handles null replacement strings with a pattern
string prefixed with `%' or `#'.
y.
The shell no longer attempts to import functions from the environment if

started with `-n'.
z.
Fixed a bug that caused `return' in a command substitution executed in

a shell function to return from the function in a subshell and continue
execution.
aa. `hash -p /pathname/with/slashes name' is no longer allowed when the shell

is restricted.
bb. The wait* job control functions now behave better if called when there
are no unwaited-for children.
cc. Command substitution no longer unconditionally disables job control in
the subshell started to run the command.
dd. A bug was fixed that occasionally caused traps to mess up the parser
state.
ee. `bashbug' now honors user headers in the mail message it sends.
ff. A bug was fixed that caused the `:p' history modifier to not print the
history expansion if the `histverify' option was set.
2.
Changes to Readline
a.
Fixed a bug in the redisplay code for lines with more than 256 line
breaks.
b.
A bug was fixed which caused invisible character markers to not be

stripped from the prompt string if the terminal was in no-echo mode.
c.
Readline no longer tries to get the variables it needs for redisplay

from the termcap entry if the calling application has specified its
own redisplay function. Readline treats the terminal as `dumb' in
this case.
d.
Fixes to the SIGWINCH code so that a multiple-line prompt with escape

sequences is redrawn correctly.
3.
a.
`bashbug' now accepts `--help' and `--version' options.
b.
There is a new `xpg_echo' option to `shopt' that controls the behavior

of echo with respect to backslash-escaped characters at runtime.

and the previous version, bash-2.04-devel.
1.
Changes to Bash
a.
Fixed a bug that could cause core dumps when performing substring
expansion.
b.
Shared object configuration changes for:
Solaris, OSF/1
c.
The POSIX_GLOB_LIBRARY code that uses the POSIX.2 globbing facilities

for pathname expansion now understands GLOBIGNORE.
d.
The code that implements èval' was changed to save the value of the
current prompt, so an eval in a shell function called by the programmable
completion code will not change the prompt to $PS2.
e.
Restored the undocumented NON_INTERACTIVE_LOGIN_SHELLS #define to

config-top.h. If this is defined, all login shells will read the
startup files, not just interactive and non-interactive started with
the `--login' option.
f.
Fixed a bug that caused the expansion code to occasionally dump core if
IFS contained characters > 128.
g.
Fixed a problem with the grammar so that a newline is not required

after the `))' in the new-style arithmetic for statement; a semicolon
may be used as expected.
h.
Variable indirection may now reference the shell's special variables.
i.
The $'...' and $"..." constructs are now added to the history correctly
if they contain newlines and command-oriented history is enabled.
j.
It is now an error to try to assign a value to a function-local copy

of a readonly shell variable (declared with the `local' builtin).
2.
Changes to Readline
a.
The history file code now uses O_BINARY mode when reading and writing
the history file on cygwin32.
3.
a.
A new programmable completion facility, with two new builtin commands:

complete and compgen.
b.
configure has a new option, `--enable-progcomp', to compile in the

programmable completion features (enabled by default).
c.
`shopt' has a new option, `progcomp', to enable and disable programmable

completion at runtime.
d.
Unsetting HOSTFILE now clears the list of hostnames used for completion.
4.
a.
A new variable, rl_gnu_readline_p, always 1. The intent is that an

application can verify whether or not it is linked with the `real'
readline library or some substitute.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------This document details the changes between this version, bash-2.04-devel,

1.
Changes to Bash
a.
System-specific configuration and source changes for:
b.
Fixed a bug in execute_cmd.c that resulted in a compile-time error if
Interix, Rhapsody
JOB_CONTROL was not defined.

c.
An obscure race condition in the trap code was fixed.
d.
The string resulting from $'...' is now requoted to avoid any further
expansion.
e.
The $'...' quoting syntax now allows backslash to escape a single quote,
for ksh-93 compatibility.
f.
The $"..." quoting syntax now escapes backslashes and double quotes in
the translated string when displaying them with the --dump-po-strings
option.
g.
ècho -e' no longer converts \' to '.
h.
Fixes were made to the extended globbing code to handle embedded (...)
patterns better.
i.
Some improvements were made to the code that unsets `nodelay' mode on
the file descriptor from which bash is reading input.
j.
Some changes were made to the replacement termcap library for better
operation on MS-DOS.
k.
Some changes were made to the tilde expansion code to handle backslash
as a pathname separator on MS-DOS.
l.
The source has been reorganized a little bit -- there is now an ìnclude'
subdirectory, and lib/posixheaders has been removed.
m.
Improvements were made to the `read' builtin so that it makes many

fewer read(2) system calls.
n.
The expansion of $- will include `c' and `s' when those options are
supplied at shell invocation.
o.
Several improvments were made to the completion code: variable completion

now works better when there are unterminated expansions, command
completion understands quotes better, and completion now works in certain
unclosed $(... constructs.
p.
The arithmetic expansion code was fixed to not need the value of a
variable being assigned a value (fixes the "ss=09; let ss=10" bug).
q.
Some changes were made to make exported environment creation faster.
r.
The html documentation will be installed into $(htmldir) if that variable

has a value when `make install' is run.
s.
Fixed a bug that would cause the bashrc file to be sourced inappropriately
when bash is started by sshd.
t.
The SSH_CLIENT environment variable is no longer auto-exported.
u.
A bug that caused redirections with (...) subshells to be performed in

the wrong order was fixed.
v.
A bug that occasionally caused inappropriate expansion of assignment

statements in compound array assignments was fixed.
w.
The code that parses the words in a compound array assignment was
simplified considerably and should work better now.
x.
Fixes to the non-job-control code in nojobs.c to make it POSIX.2-compliant

when a user attempts to retrieve the status of a terminated background
process.
y.
Fixes to the `printf' builtin so that it doesn't try to expand all

backslash escape sequences in the format string before parsing it for
% format specifiers.
2.
Changes to Readline
a.
The history library tries to truncate the history file only if it is a

regular file.
b.
A bug that caused _rl_dispatch to address negative array indices on

systems with signed chars was fixed.
c.
rl-yank-nth-arg now leaves the history position the same as when it was
called.
d.
Changes to the completion code to handle MS-DOS drive-letter:pathname

filenames.
e.
Completion is now case-insensitive by default on MS-DOS.
f.
Fixes to the history file manipulation code for MS-DOS.
g.
Readline attempts to bind the arrow keys to appropriate defaults on MS-DOS.
h.
Some fixes were made to the redisplay code for better operation on MS-DOS.
i.
The quoted-insert code will now insert tty special chars like ^C.
j.
A bug was fixed that caused the display code to reference memory before
the start of the prompt string.
k.
More support for __EMX__ (OS/2).
l.
A bug was fixed in readline's signal handling that could cause infinite
recursion in signal handlers.
m.
A bug was fixed that caused the point to be less than zero when rl_forward
was given a very large numeric argument.
n.
The vi-mode code now gets characters via the application-settable value
of rl_getc_function rather than calling rl_getc directly.
3.
a.
The history builtin has a `-d offset' option to delete the history entry
at position òffset'.
b.
The prompt expansion code has two new escape sequences: \j, the number of
active jobs; and \l, the basename of the shell's tty device name.
c.
The `bind' builtin has a new `-x' option to bind key sequences to shell
commands.
d.
There is a new shell option, no_empty_command_completion, which, when

enabled, disables command completion when TAB is typed on an empty line.
e.
The `help' builtin has a `-s' option to just print a builtin's usage
synopsys.
f.
There are several new arithmetic operators:
id++, id-- (variable
post-increment/decrement), ++id, --id (variabl pre-increment/decrement),

expr1 , expr2 (comma operator).
g.
There is a new ksh-93 style arithmetic for command:

for ((expr1 ; expr2; expr3 )); do list; done
h.
The `read' builtin has a number of new options:

-t timeout only wait timeout seconds for input
-n nchars
only read nchars from input instead of a full line
-d delim
read until delim rather than newline
-s
don't echo input chars as they are read
i.
The redirection code now handles several filenames specially:

/dev/fd/N, /dev/stdin, /dev/stdout, and /dev/stderr, whether or
not they are present in the file system.
j.
The redirection code now recognizes pathnames of the form

/dev/tcp/host/port and /dev/udp/host/port, and tries to open a socket
of the appropriate type to the specified port on the specified host.
k.
The ksh-93 ${!prefix*} expansion, which expands to the names of all

shell variables whose names start with prefix, has been implemented.
l.
There is a new dynamic variable, FUNCNAME, which expands to the name of

a currently-executing function. Assignments to FUNCNAME have no effect.
m.
The GROUPS variable is no longer readonly; assignments to it are silently

discarded. This means it can be unset.
4.
a.
Parentheses matching is now always compiled into readline, and enabled

or disabled when the value of the `blink-matching-paren' variable is
changed.
b.
MS-DOS systems now use ~/_inputrc as the last-ditch inputrc filename.
c.
MS-DOS systems now use ~/_history as the default history file.
d.
history-search-{forward,backward} now leave the point at the end of the

line when the string to search for is empty, like
{reverse,forward}-search-history.
e.
history-search-{forward,backward} now leave the last history line found

in the readline buffer if the second or subsequent search fails.
f.
New function for use by applications: rl_on_new_line_with_prompt, used

when an application displays the prompt itself before calling readline().
g.
New variable for use by applications: rl_already_prompted. An application

that displays the prompt itself before calling readline() must set this to
a non-zero value.

1.
Changes to Bash
a.
A file descriptor leak in the `fc' builtin was fixed.
b.
A bug was fixed in the `read' builtin that caused occasional spurious
failures when using `read -e'.
c.
The version code needed to use the value of the cpp variable
CONF_MACHTYPE rather than MACHTYPE.
d.
A new test was added to exercise the command printing and copying code.
e.
A bug was fixed that caused `time' to be recognized as a reserved word

if it was the first pattern in a `case' statement pattern list.

1.
Changes to Bash
a.
Slight additions to support/shobj-conf, mostly for the benefit of AIX 4.2.
b.
config.{guess,sub} support added for the NEC SX4.
c.
Changed some of the cross-compiling sections of the configure macros in

aclocal.m4 so that configure won't abort.
d.
Slight changes to how the HTML versions of the bash and readline manuals
are generated.
e.
Fixed conditional command printing to avoid interpreting printf `%'-escapes

in arguments to [[.
f.
Don't include the bash malloc on all variants of the alpha processor.
g.
Changes to configure to make --enable-profiling work on Solaris 2.x.
h.
Fixed a bug that manifested itself when shell functions were called
between calls to `getopts'.
i.
Fixed pattern substitution so that a bare `#'as a pattern causes the

replacement string to be prefixed to the search string, and a bare
`%' causes the replacement string to be appended to the search string.
j.
Fixed a bug in the command execution code that caused child processes
to occasionally have the wrong value for $!.
2.
Changes to Readline
a.
Added code to the history library to catch history substitutions using

`&' without a previous history substitution or search having been
performed.
3.
4.
a.
New bindable variable: ìsearch-terminators'.
b.
New bindable function: `forward-backward-delete-char' (unbound by default).

1.
Changes to Bash
a.
A change was made to the help text for `{...}' to make it clear that a
semicolon is required before the closing brace.
b.
A fix was made to the `test' builtin so that syntax errors cause test
to return an exit status > 1.
c.
Globbing is no longer performed on assignment statements that appear as

arguments to àssignment builtins' such as èxport'.
d.
System-specific configuration changes were made for:

AIX 4.2/gcc, BSD/OS 4.0.
e.
New loadable builtins: ln, unlink.
f.
Some fixes were made to the globbing code to handle extended glob patterns
which immediately follow a `*'.
g.
A fix was made to the command printing code to ensure that redirections
following compound commands have a space separating them from the rest
of the command.
h.
The pathname canonicalization code was changed to produce fewer leading

`//' sequences, since those are interpreted as network file system
pathnames on some systems.
i.
A fix was made so that loops containing èval' commands in commands passed
to `bash -c' would not exit prematurely.
j.
Some changes were made to the job reaping code when the shell is not
interactive, so the shell will retain exit statuses longer for examination
by `wait'.
k.
A fix was made so that `jobs | command' works again.
l.
The erroneous compound array assignment var=((...)) is now a syntax error.
m.
A change was made to the dynamic loading code in ènable' to support

Tenon's MachTen.
n.
A fix was made to the globbing code so that extended globbing patterns
will correctly match `.' in a bracket expression.
2.
Changes to Readline
a.
A fix was made to the completion code in which a typo caused the wrong
value to be passed to the function that computed the longest common
prefix of the list of matches.
b.
The completion code now checks the value of rl_filename_completion_desired,

which is set by application-supplied completion functions to indicate
that filename completion is being performed, to decide whether or not to
call an application-supplied ìgnore completions' function.
3.
a.
A change was made to the startup file code so that any shell begun with
the `--login' option, even non-interactive shells, will source the login
shell startup files.
4.
a.
A new variable, rl_erase_empty_line, which, if set by an application using

readline, will cause readline to erase, prompt and all, lines on which the
only thing typed was a newline.
Rhapsody,
and the previous version, bash-2.02.1-release.

1.
Changes to Bash
a.
System-specific configuration changes were made for: Irix 6.x, Unixware 7.
b.
The texi2dvi and texi2html scripts were updated to the latest versions
from the net.
c.
The configure tests that determine which native type is 32 bits were
changed to not require a compiled program.
d.
Fixed a bug in shell_execve that could cause memory to be freed twice

after a failed exec.
e.
The `printf' test uses `diff -a' if it's available to prevent confusion
due to the non-ascii output.
f.
Shared object configuration is now performed by a shell script,

support/shobj-conf, which generates values to be substituted into
makefiles by configure.
g.
Some changes were made to ùlimit' to avoid the use of RLIM_INVALID as a

return value.
h.
Changes were made to ùlimit' to work around HPUX 9.x's peculiar

handling of RLIMIT_FILESIZE.
i.
Some new loadable builtins were added: id, printenv, sync, whoami, push,
mkdir. `pushd', `popd', and `dirs' can now be built as regular or
loadable builtins from the same source file.
j.
Changes were made to `printf' to handle NUL bytes in the expanded format
string.
k.
The various `make clean' Makefile targets now descend into lib/sh.
l.
The `type' builtin was changed to use the internal `getopt' so that things
like `type -ap' work as expected.
m.
There is a new configuration option, --with-installed-readline, to link

bash with a locally-installed version of readline. Only readline version
4.0 and later releases can support this. Shared and static libraries
are supported. The installed include files are used.
n.
There is a new autoconf macro used to find which basic type is 64 bits.
o.
Dynamic linking and loadable builtins should now work on SCO 3.2v5*,
AIX 4.2 with gcc, Unixware 7, and many other systems using gcc, where
the `-shared' options works correctly.
p.
A bug was fixed in the bash filename completion code that caused memory to
be freed twice if a directory name containing an unset variable was
completed and the -u option was set.
q.
The prompt expansion code now quotes the `$' in the `\$' expansion so it
is not processed by subsequent parameter expansion.
r.
Fixed a parsing bug that caused a single or double quote after a `$$' to
trigger ANSI C expansion or locale translation.
s.
Fixed a bug in the globbing code that caused quoted filenames containing
no globbing characters to sometimes be incorrectly expanded.
t.
Changes to the default prompt strings if prompt string decoding is not

compiled into the shell.
u.
Added `do', `then', èlse', `{', and `(' to the list of keywords that may
precede the `time' reserved word.
v.
The shell may now be cross-built for BeOS as well as cygwin32.
w.
The conditional command execution code now treats `=' the same as `=='
for deciding when to perform pattern matching.
x.
The `-e' option no longer causes the shell to exit if a command exits
with a non-zero status while running the startup files.
y.
The `printf' builtin no longer dumps core if a modifier is supplied in

the format string without a conversion character (e.g. `%h').
z.
Array assignments of the form a=(...) no longer show up in the history

list.
aa. The parser was fixed to obey the POSIX.2 rules for finding the closing
`}' in a ${...} expression.
bb. The history file is now opened with mode 0600 rather than 0666, so bash
no longer relies on the user's umask being set appropriately.
cc. Setting LANG no longer causes LC_ALL to be assigned a value; bash now
relies on proper behavior from the C library.
dd. Minor changes were made to allow quoted variable expansions using
${...} to be completed correctly if there is no closing `"'.
ee. Changes were made to builtins/Makefile.in so that configuring the shell
with `--enable-profiling' works right and builtins/mkbuiltins is
generated.
2.
Changes to Readline
a.
The version number is now 4.0.
b.
There is no longer any #ifdef SHELL code in the source files.
c.
Some changes were made to the key binding code to fix memory leaks and
better support Win32 systems.
d.
Fixed a silly typo in the paren matching code -- it's microseconds, not
milliseconds.
e.
The readline library should be compilable by C++ compilers.
f.
The readline.h public header file now includes function prototypes for
all readline functions, and some changes were made to fix errors in the
source files uncovered by the use of prototypes.
g.
The maximum numeric argument is now clamped at 1000000.
h.
Fixes to rl_yank_last_arg to make it behave better.
i.
Fixed a bug in the display code that caused core dumps if the prompt
string length exceeded 1024 characters.
j.
The menu completion code was fixed to properly insert a single completion
if there is only one match.
k.
A bug was fixed that caused the display code to improperly display tabs
after newlines.
3.
a.
New `shopt' option, `restricted_shell', indicating whether or not the

shell was started in restricted mode, for use in startup files.
b.
Filename generation is now performed on the words between ( and ) in

array assignments (which it probably should have done all along).
c.
OLDPWD is now auto-exported, as POSIX.2 seems to require.
d.
ENV and BASH_ENV are read-only variables in a restricted shell.
4.
a.
Many changes to the signal handling:

o Readline now catches SIGQUIT and cleans up the tty before returning;
o A new variable, rl_catch_signals, is available to application writers
to indicate to readline whether or not it should install its own
signal handlers for SIGINT, SIGTERM, SIGQUIT, SIGALRM, SIGTSTP,
SIGTTIN, and SIGTTOU;
o A new variable, rl_catch_sigwinch, is available to application
writers to indicate to readline whether or not it should install its
own signal handler for SIGWINCH, which will chain to the calling
applications's SIGWINCH handler, if one is installed;
o There is a new function, rl_free_line_state, for application signal
handlers to call to free up the state associated with the current
line after receiving a signal;
o There is a new function, rl_cleanup_after_signal, to clean up the
display and terminal state after receiving a signal;
o There is a new function, rl_reset_after_signal, to reinitialize the
terminal and display state after an application signal handler
returns and readline continues
b.
There is a new function, rl_resize_terminal, to reset readline's idea of

the screen size after a SIGWINCH.
c.
New public functions: rl_save_prompt and rl_restore_prompt.

previously private functions with a `_' prefix.
d.
New function hook: rl_pre_input_hook, called just before readline starts

reading input, after initialization.
e.
New function hook: rl_display_matches_hook, called when readline would

display the list of completion matches. The new function
rl_display_match_list is what readline uses internally, and is available
for use by application functions called via this hook.
f.
New bindable function, delete-char-or-list, like tcsh.
These were
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------This document details the changes between this version, bash-2.02.1-release,

1.
Changes to Bash
a.
A bug that caused the bash readline support to not compile unless aliases
and csh-style history were configured into the shell was fixed.
b.
Fixed a bug that could cause a core dump when here documents contained
more than 1000 characters.
c.
Fixed a bug that caused a CDPATH entry of "" to not be treated the same
as the current directory when in POSIX mode.
d.
Fixed an alignment problem with the memory returned by the bash malloc,
so returned memory is now 64-bit aligned.
e.
Fixed a bug that caused command substitutions executed within pipelines

to put the terminal in the wrong process group.
f.
Fixes to support/config.sub for: alphas, SCO Open Server and Open Desktop,
Unixware 2, and Unixware 7.
g.
Fixes to the pattern matching code to make it work correctly for eight-bit
characters.
h.
Fixed a problem that occasionally caused the shell to display the wrong
value for the new working directory when changing to a directory found
in $CDPATH when in physical mode.
i.
Fixed a bug that caused core dumps when using conditional commands in
shell functions.
j.
Fixed a bug that caused the printf builtin to loop forever if the format
string did not consume any of the arguments.
k.
Fixed a bug in the parameter expansion code that caused "$@" to be

incorrectly split if $IFS did not contain a space character.
l.
Fixed a bug that could cause a core dump when completing hostnames if
the number of matching hostnames was an exact multiple of 16.
m.
Fixed a bug that caused the shell to fork too early when a command
such as `%2 &' was given.
2.
Changes to Readline
a.
Fixed a problem with redisplay that showed up when the prompt string was
longer than the screen width and the prompt contained invisible characters.

1.
Changes to Bash
a.
A bug was fixed that caused the terminal process group to be set
incorrectly when performing command substitution of builtins in a
pipeline.

1.
Changes to Bash
a.
Attempting to `wait' for stopped jobs now generates a warning message.
b.
Pipelines which exit due to SIGPIPE in non-interactive shells are now

not reported if the shell is compiled -DDONT_REPORT_SIGPIPE.
c.
Some changes were made to builtins/psize.sh and support/bashbug.sh to

attempt to avoid some /tmp file races and surreptitious file
substitutions.
d.
Fixed a bug that caused the shell not to compile if configured with
dparen arithmetic but without aliases.
e.
Fixed a bug that caused the input stream to be switched when assigning
empty arrays with `bash -c'.
f.
A bug was fixed in the readline expansion glue code that caused bash to
dump core when expanding lines with an unclosed single quote.
g.
A fix was made to the `cd' builtin so that using a non-empty directory
from $CDPATH results in an absolute pathname of the new current working
directory to be displayed after the current directory is changed.
h.
Fixed a bug in the variable assignment code that caused the shell to
dump core when referencing an unset variable with `set -u' enabled in
an assignment statement preceding a command.
i.
Fixed a bug in the exit trap code that caused reserved words to not be
recognized under certain circumstances.
j.
Fixed a bug in the parameter pattern substitution code so that quote

removal is performed.
k.
The shell should now configure correctly on Apple Rhapsody systems.
l.
The `kill' builtin now prints a usage message if it is not passed any
arguments.

1.
Changes to Bash
a.
A few compilation bugs were fixed in the new extended globbing code.
b.
Executing arithmetic commands now sets the command name to `((' so

error messages look right.
c.
Fixed some build problems with various configuration options.
d.
The `printf' builtin now aborts immediately if an illegal format

character is encountered.
e.
The code that creates here-documents now behaves better if the file it's
trying to create already exists for some reason.
f.
Fixed a problem with the extended globbing code that made patterns like
`x+*' expand incorrectly.
g.
The prompt string expansion code no longer quotes tildes with backslashes.
h.
The bash getcwd() implementation in lib/sh/getcwd.c now behaves better in

the presence of lstat(2) failures.
i.
Fixed a bug with strsub() that caused core dumps when executing `fc -s'.
j.
The mail checking code now ensures that it has a valid default mailpath.
k.
A bug was fixed that caused local variables to be unset inappropriately

when sourcing a script from within another sourced script.
l.
A bug was fixed in the history saving code so that functions are saved
in the history list correctly if `cmdhist' is enabled, but `lithist'
is not.
m.
A bug was fixed that caused printf overflows when displaying error
messages.
n.
It should be easier to build the loadble builtins in examples/loadables,

though some manual editing of the generated Makefile is still required.
o.
The user's primary group is now always ${GROUPS[0]}.
p.
Some updates were made to support/config.guess from the GNU master copy.
q.
Some changes were made to the autoconf support for Solaris 2.6 large
files.
r.
The `command' builtins now does the right thing when confstr(3) cannot
find a value for _CS_PATH.
s.
Extended globbing expressions like `*.!(c)' are not history expanded if

èxtglob' is enabled.
t.
Using the `-P' option to `cd' will force the value that is assigned to
PWD to not contain any symbolic links.
2.
Changes to Readline
a.
The code that prints completion listings now behaves better if one or
more of the filenames contains non-printable characters.
b.
The time delay when showing matching parentheses is now 0.5 seconds.

and the previous version, bash-2.01.1-release.
1.
Changes to Bash
a.
OS-specific configuration changes for:

Solaris 2.6, SINIX SVR4.
b.
Changes were made to the generated ìnfo' files so that ìnstall-info'

works correctly.
c.
PWD is now auto-exported.
d.
A fix was made to the pipeline code to make sure that the shell forks
to execute simple commands consisting solely of assignment statements.
e.
Changes to the test suite for systems with 14-character filenames.
f.
The default sizes of some internal hash tables have been made smaller
to reduce the shell's memory footprint.
g.
The `((...))' arithmetic command is now executed directly instead of

being translated into `let "..."'.
h.
Fixes were made to the expansion code so that "$*", "$@", "${array[@]}",
and "${array[@]}" expand correctly when IFS does not contain a space
character, is unset, or is set to NULL.
i.
The indirect expansion code (${!var}) was changed so that the only
valid values of `var' are variable names, positional parameters, `#',
`@', and `*'.
BSD/OS 3.x, Minix 2.x,
j.
An arithmetic expression error in a $((...)) expansion now causes a

non-interactive shell running in posix mode to exit.
k.
Compound array assignment now splits the words within the parentheses
on shell metacharacters like the parser would before expansing them
and performing the assignment. This is for compatibility with ksh-93.
l.
The internal shell backslash-quoting code (used in the output of `set'

and completion) now quotes tildes if they appear at the start of the
string or after a `=' or `:'.
m.
A couple of bugs with `shopt -o' were fixed.
n.
`bash +o' now displays the same output as `set +o' before starting an
interactive shell.
o.
A bug that caused command substitution and the èval' builtin to

occasionally free memory twice when an error was encountered was fixed.
p.
The filename globbing code no longer requires read permission for a

directory when the filename to be matched does not contain any globbing
characters, as POSIX.2 specifies.
q.
A bug was fixed so that the job containing the last asynchronous
process is not removed from the job table until a `wait' is executed
for that process or another asynchronous process is started. This
satisfies a POSIX.2 requirement.
r.
A `select' bug was fixed so that a non-numeric user response is treated

the same as a numeric response that is out of range.
s.
The shell no longer parses the value of SHELLOPTS from the environment
if it is restricted, running setuid, or running in `privileged mode'.
t.
Fixes were made to enable large file support on systems such as

Solaris 2.6, where the size of a file may be larger than can be held
in an ìnt'.
u.
The filename hashing code was fixed to not add `./' to the beginning of
filenames which already begin with `./'.
v.
The configure script was changed so that the GNU termcap library is not
compiled in if `prefer-curses' has been specified.
w.
HISTCONTROL and HISTIGNORE are no longer applied to the second and

subsequent lines of a multi-line command.
x.
A fix was made to `disown' so that it does a better job of catching

out-of-range jobs.
y.
Non-interactive shells no longer report the status of processes terminated

due to SIGINT, even if the standard output is a terminal.
z.
A bug that caused the output of `jobs' to have extra carriage returns
was fixed.
aa. A bug that caused PIPESTATUS to not be set when builtins or shell
functions were executed in the foreground was fixed.
bb. Bash now attempts to detect when it is being run by sshd, and treats
that case identically to being run by rshd.
cc. A bug that caused `set -a' to export SHELLOPTS when one of the shell
options was changed was fixed.
dd. The `kill' builtin now disallows empty or missing process id arguments
instead of treating them as identical to `0', which means the current
process.
ee. `var=value declare -x var' now behaves identically to
`var=value export var'. Similarly for `var=value declare -r var' and
`var=value readonly var'.
ff. A few memory leaks were fixed.
gg. àlias' and ùnalias' now print error messages when passed an argument
that is not an alias for printing or deletion, even when the shell is
not interactive, as POSIX.2 specifies.
hh. àlias' and àlias -p' now return a status of 0 when no aliases are
defined, as POSIX.2 specifes.
ii. `cd -' now prints the pathname of the new working directory if the shell
is interactive.
jj. A fix was made so that the code that binds $PWD now copes with getcwd()
returning NULL.
kk. ùnset' now checks whether or not a function name it's trying to unset
is a valid shell identifier only when the shell is running in posix mode.
ll. A change was made to the code that generates filenames for here documents
to make them less prone to name collisions.
mm. The parser was changed so that `time' is recognized as a reserved word
only at the beginning of a pipeline.
nn. The pathname canonicalization code was changed so that `//' is converted
into `/', but all other pathnames beginning with `//' are left alone, as
POSIX.2 specifies.
oo. The `logout' builtin will no longer exit a non-interactive non-login
shell.
2.
Changes to Readline
a.
Fixed a problem in the readline test program rltest.c that caused a core
dump.
b.
The code that handles parser directives in inputrc files now displays
more error messages.
c.
The history expansion code was fixed so that the appearance of the
history comment character at the beginning of a word inhibits history
expansion for that word and the rest of the input line.
3.
a.
A new version of malloc, based on the older GNU malloc, that has many
changes, is more page-based, is more conservative with memory usage,
and does not òrphan' large blocks when they are freed.
b.
A new version of gmalloc, based on the old GLIBC malloc, with many
changes and range checking included by default.
c.
A new implementation of fnmatch(3) that includes full POSIX.2 Basic

Regular Expression matching, including character classes, collating
symbols, equivalence classes, and support for case-insensitive pattern
matching.
d.
ksh-88 egrep-style extended pattern matching ([@+*?!](patlist)) has been

implemented, controlled by a new `shopt' option, èxtglob'.
e.
There is a new ksh-like `[[' compound command, which implements

extended `test' functionality.
f.
There is a new `printf' builtin, implemented according to the POSIX.2

specification.
g.
There is a new feature for command substitution: $(< filename) now expands
to the contents of `filename', with any trailing newlines removed
(equivalent to $(cat filename)).
h.
There are new tilde prefixes which expand to directories from the
directory stack.
i.
There is a new `**' arithmetic operator to do exponentiation.
j.
There are new configuration options to control how bash is linked:

`--enable-profiling', to allow bash to be profiled with gprof, and
`--enable-static-link', to allow bash to be linked statically.
k.
There is a new configuration option, `--enable-cond-command', which

controls whether or not the `[[' command is included. It is on by
default.
l.
There is a new configuration option, `--enable-extended-glob', which

controls whether or not the ksh extended globbing feature is included.
It is enabled by default.
m.
There is a new configuration #define in config.h.top that, when enabled,

will cause all login shells to source /etc/profile and one of the userspecific login shell startup files, whether or not the shell is
interactive.
n.
There is a new invocation option, `--dump-po-strings', to dump

a shell script's translatable strings ($"...") in GNU `po' format.
o.
There is a new `shopt' option, `nocaseglob', to enable case-insensitive

pattern matching when globbing filenames and using the `case' construct.
p.
There is a new `shopt' option, `huponexit', which, when enabled, causes

the shell to send SIGHUP to all jobs when an interactive login shell
exits.
q.
`bind' has a new `-u' option, which takes a readline function name as an
argument and unbinds all key sequences bound to that function in a
specified keymap.
r.
`disown' now has `-a' and `-r' options, to limit operation to all jobs
and running jobs, respectively.
s.
The `shopt' `-p' option now causes output to be displayed in a reusable

format.
t.
`test' has a new `-N' option, which returns true if the filename argument
has been modified since it was last accessed.
u.
ùmask' now has a `-p' option to print output in a reusable format.
v.
A new escape sequence, `\xNNN', has been added to the ècho -e' and $'...'
translation code. It expands to the character whose ascii code is NNN
in hexadecimal.
w.
The prompt string expansion code has a new `\r' escape sequence.
x.
The shell may now be cross-compiled for the CYGWIN32 environment on

a Unix machine.
4.
a.
There is now an option for ìterative' yank-last-arg handline, so a user

can keep entering `M-.', yanking the last argument of successive history
lines.
b.
New variable, `print-completions-horizontally', which causes completion

matches to be displayed across the screen (like `ls -x') rather than up
and down the screen (like `ls').
c.
New variable, `completion-ignore-case', which causes filename completion

and matching to be performed case-insensitively.
d.
There is a new bindable command, `magic-space', which causes history

expansion to be performed on the current readline buffer and a space to
be inserted into the result.
e.
There is a new bindable command, `menu-complete', which enables tcsh-like

menu completion (successive executions of menu-complete insert a single
completion match, cycling through the list of possible completions).
f.
There is a new bindable command, `paste-from-clipboard', for use on Win32

systems, to insert the text from the Win32 clipboard into the editing
buffer.
g.
The key sequence translation code now understands printf-style backslash

escape sequences, including \NNN octal escapes. These escape sequences
may be used in key sequence definitions or macro values.
h.
An `$include' inputrc file parser directive has been added.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------This document details the changes between this version, bash-2.01.1-release,

1.
Changes to Bash
a.
The select command was fixed to check the validity of the user's
input more strenuously.
b.
A bug was fixed that prevented `time' from timing commands correctly
when supplied as an argument to `bash -c'.
c.
A fix was made to the mail checking code to keep from adding the same
mail file to the list of files to check multiple times when parsing
$MAILPATH.
d.
Fixed an off-by-one error in the tilde expansion library.
e.
When using the compound array assignment syntax, the old value of
the array is cleared before assigning the new value.
f.
Fixed a bug that could cause a core dump when a trap handler was reset
to the default in the trap command associated with that signal.
g.
Fixed a bug in the locale code that occurred when assigning a value
to LC_ALL.
h.
A change was made to the parser so that words of the form xxx=(...)
are not considered compound assignment statements unless there are
characters before the `='.
i.
A fix was made to the command tracing code to correctly quote each
word of output.
j.
Some changes were made to the bash-specific autoconf tests to make them
more portable.
k.
Completion of words with globbing characters now correctly quotes the

result.
l.
The directory /var/spool/mail is now preferred to /usr/spool/mail when

configure is deciding on the default mail directory.
m.
The brace completion code was fixed to not quote the `{' and `}'.
n.
Some fixes were made to make $RANDOM more random in subshells.
o.
System-specific changes were made to configure for: SVR4.2
p.
Changes were made so that completion of words containing globbing chars

substitutes the result only if a single filename was matched.
q.
The window size is now recomputed after a job is stopped with SIGTSTP if
the user has set `checkwinsize' with `shopt'.
r.
When doing substring expansion, out-of-range substring specifiers now

cause nothing to be substituted rather than an expansion error.
s.
A fix was made so that you can no longer trap `SIGEXIT' or `SIGDEBUG' -only ÈXIT' and `DEBUG' are accepted.
t.
The display of trapped signals now uses the signal number if signals
for which bash does not know the name are trapped.
u.
A fix was made so that `bash -r' does not turn on restricted mode until
after the startup files are executed.
v.
A bug was fixed that occasionally caused a core dump when a variable
found in the temporary environment of export/declare/readonly had a
null value.
w.
A bug that occasionally caused unallocated memory to be passed to free()

when doing arithmetic substitution was fixed.
x.
A bug that caused a buffer overrun when expanding a prompt string

containing `\w' and ${#PWD} exceeded PATH_MAX was fixed.
y.
A problem with the completion code that occasionally caused it to

refer to a character before the beginning of the readline line buffer
was fixed.
z.
A bug was fixed so that the `read' builtin restarts reads when
interrupted by signals other than SIGINT.
aa. Fixed a bug that caused a command to be freed twice when there was
an evaluation error in the èval' command.
2.
Changes to Readline
a.
Added a missing èxtern' to a declaration in readline.h that kept
readline from compiling cleanly on some systems.

b.
The history file is now opened with mode 0600 when it is written for
better security.
c.
Changes were made to the SIGWINCH handling code so that prompt redisplay
is done better.
d.
^G now interrupts incremental searches correctly.
e.
A bug that caused a core dump when the set of characters to be quoted
when completing words was empty was fixed.

1.
Changes to Bash
a.
The `distclean' target should remove the `printenv' executable if it

has been created.
b.
The test suite was changed slightly to ensure that the error messages
are printed in English.
c.
A bug that caused the shell to dump core when a filename containing a
`/' was passed to `hash' was fixed.
d.
Pathname canonicalization now leaves a leading `//' intact, as POSIX.1

requires.
e.
A memory leak when completing commands was fixed.
f.
A memory leak that occurred when checking the hash table for commands
with relative paths was fixed.

1.
Changes to Bash
a.
The ùlimit' builtin translates RLIM_INFINITY to the hard limit only if

the current (soft) limit is less than or equal to the hard limit.
b.
Fixed a bug that caused the bash emulation of strcasecmp to produce

incorrect results.
c.
A bug that caused memory to be freed twice when a trap handler resets
the trap more than once was fixed.
d.
A bug that caused machines where sizeof (pointer) > sizeof (int) to
fail (and possibly dump core) when trying to unwind-protect a null
pointer was fixed.
e.
The startup files should not be run with job control enabled.
allows SIGINT to once again interrupt startup file execution.
f.
Bash should not change the SIGPROF handler if it is set to something

other than SIG_DFL.
g.
The completion code that provides bash-specific completions for readline

now quotes characters that the readline code would treat as word break
characters if they appear in a file name.
This fix
h.
The completion code now correctly quotes filenames containing a `!',

even if the user attempted to use double quotes when attempting
completion.
i.
A bug that caused the shell to dump core when `disown' was called without
arguments and there was no current job was fixed.
j.
A construct like $((foo);bar) is now processed as a command substitution

rather than as a bad arithmetic substitution.
k.
A couple of bugs that caused `fc' to not obey the `cmdhist' and `lithist'
shell options when editing and re-executing a series of commands were
fixed.
l.
A fix was made to the grammar -- the list of commands between `do' and
`done' in the body of a `for' command should be treated the same as a
while loop.
2.
Changes to Readline
a.
A couple of bugs that caused the history search functions to attempt to

free a NULL pointer were fixed.
b.
If the C library provides setlocale(3), readline does not need to look

at various environment variables to decide whether or not to go into
eight-bit mode automatically -- just check whether the current locale
is not `C' or `POSIX'.
c.
If the filename completion function finds that a directory was not closed
by a previous (interrupted) completion, it closes the directory with
closedir().
3.
a.
New bindable readline commands: history-and-alias-expand-line and

alias-expand-line. The code was always in there, there was just no
way to execute it.

1.
Changes to Bash
a.
Fixed a problem that could cause file descriptors used for process
substitution to conflict with those used explicitly in redirections.
b.
Made it easier to regenerate configure if the user changes configure.in.
c.
${GROUPS[0]} should always be the primary group, even on systems without

multiple groups.
d.
Spelling correction is no longer enabled by default.
e.
Fixes to quoting problems in `bashbug'.
f.
OS-specific configuration changes were made for: Irix 6.
g.
OS-specific code changes were made for: QNX.
h.
A more meaningful message is now printed when the file in /tmp for a
here document cannot be created.
i.
Many changes to the shell's variable initialization code to speed

non-interactive startup.
j.
Changes to the non-job-control code so that it does not try to open

/dev/tty.
k.
The output of `set' and èxport' is once again sorted, as POSIX wants.
l.
Fixed a problem caused by a recursive call reparsing the value of

$SHELLOPTS.
m.
The tilde code no longer calls getenv() when it's compiled as part of
the shell, which should eliminate problems on systems that cannot
redefine getenv(), like the NeXT OS.
n.
Fixed a problem that caused `bash -o' or `bash +o' to not list all
the shell options.
o.
Fixed ùlimit' to convert RLIM_INFINITY to the appropriate hard limit

only if the hard limit is greater than the current (soft) limit.
p.
Fixed a problem that arose when building bash in a different directory

than the source and y.tab.[ch] were remade with something other than
bison. This came up most often on NetBSD.
q.
Fixed a problem with completion -- it thought that `pwd`/[TAB] indicated

an unfinished command completion (`/), which generated errors.
r.
The bash special tilde expansions (~-, ~+) are now attempted before
calling the standard tilde expansion code, which should eliminate the
problems people have been seeing with this on Solaris 2.5.1.
s.
Added support for <stdarg.h> to places where it was missing.
t.
Changed the code that reads the output of a command substitution to not
go through stdio. This reduces the memory requirements and is faster.
u.
A number of changes to speed up export environment creation were made.
v.
A number of memory leaks were fixed as the result of running the test
scripts through Purify.
w.
Fixed a bug that caused subshells forked to interpret executable

scripts without a leading `#!' to not reinitialize the values of
the shell options.
2.
Changes to Readline
a.
History library has less `#ifdef SHELL' code -- abstracted stuff out
into application-specific function hooks.
b.
Readline no longer calls getenv() if it's compiled as part of the shell,

which should eliminate problems on systems that cannot redefine getenv(),
like the NeXT OS.
c.
Fixed translation of ESC when ùntranslating' macro values.
d.
The region kill operation now fixes the mark if it ends up beyond the
boundaries of the line after the region is deleted.
3.
a.
New argument for `configure': `--with-curses'. This can be used to

override the selection of the termcap library on systems where it is
deficient.
1.
Changes to Bash
a.
System-specific configuration changes for: FreeBSD, SunOS4, Irix,

MachTen, QNX 4.2, Harris Night Hawk, SunOS5.
b.
System-specific code changes were made for: Linux, 4.4 BSD, QNX 4.2,
HP-UX, AIX 4.2.
c.
A bug that caused the exec builtin to fail because the full pathname of
the command could not be found was fixed.
d.
The code that performs output redirections is now more resistant to

race conditions and possible security exploits.
e.
A bug that caused the shell to dump core when performing pattern
substitutions on variable values was fixed.
f.
More hosts are now recognized by the auto-configuration mechanism

(OpenBSD, QNX, others).
g.
Assignments to read-only variables that attempt to convert them to

arrays are now errors.
h.
A bug that caused shell scripts using array assignments in POSIX mode
to exit after the assignment was performed was fixed.
i.
The substring expansion code is now more careful about running off the
ends of the expanded variable value.
j.
A bug that caused completion to fail if a backquoted command substitution

appeared anywhere on the line was fixed.
k.
The `source' builtin no longer turns off history if it has been enabled
in a non-interactive shell.
l.
A bug that caused the shell to crash when `disown' was given a pid
instead of a job number was fixed.
m.
The `cd' spelling correction code will not try to change to `.' if no
directory entries match a single-character argument.
n.
A bad variable name supplied to `declare', èxport', or `readonly' no

longer causes a non-interactive shell in POSIX mode to exit.
o.
Some fixes were made to the test suite to handle peculiarities of

various Unix versions.
p.
The bash completion code now quotes characters that readline would
treat as word breaks for completion but are not shell metacharacters.
q.
Bad options supplied at invocation now cause a usage message to be

displayed.
r.
Fixes were made to the code that handles DEBUG traps so that the trap
string is not freed inappropriately.
s.
Some changes were made to the bash debugger in examples/bashdb -- it

should be closer to working now.
t.
A problem that caused the default filename used for mail checking to be
wrong was fixed.
u.
A fix was made to the ècho' builtin so that NUL characters printed with
ècho -e' do not cause the output to be truncated.
v.
A fix was made to the job control code so that the shell behaves better
when monitor mode is enabled in a non-interactive shell.
w.
Bash no longer catches all of the terminating signals in a noninteractive shell until a trap is set on EXIT, which should result in
quicker startup.
x.
A fix was made to the command timing code so that `time' can be used in
a loop.
y.
A fix was made to the parser so that `((cmd); cmd2)' is now parsed as
a nested subshell rather than strictly as an (erroneous) arithmetic
command.
z.
A fix was made to the globbing code so that it correctly matches quoted
filenames beginning with a `.'.
aa. A bug in `fc' that caused some multi-line commands to not be stored as
one command in the history when they were re-executed after editing
(with `fc -e') was fixed.
bb. The ùlimit' builtin now attempts to catch some classes of integer
overflows.
cc. The command-oriented-history code no longer attempts to add `;'
inappropriately when a newline appears while reading a $(...) command
substitution.
dd. A bug that caused the shell to dump core when `help --' was executed
was fixed.
ee. A bug that caused the shell to crash when an unset variable appeared
in the body of a here document after `set -u' had been executed was
fixed.
ff. Implicit input redirections from /dev/null for asynchronous commands
are now handled better.
gg. A bug that caused the shell to fail to compile when configured with
`--disable-readline' was fixed.
hh. The globbing code should now be interruptible.
ii. Bash now notices when the `kill' builtin is used to send SIGCONT to a
stopped job and adjusts the data structures accordingly, as if `bg' had
been executed instead.
jj. A bug that caused the shell to crash when mixing calls to `getopts'
and `shift' on the same set of positional parameters was fixed.
kk. The command printing code now preserves the `-p' flag to `time'.
ll. The command printing code now handles here documents better when there
are other redirections associated with the command.
mm. The special glibc environment variable (NNN_GNU_nonoption_argv_flags_)
is no longer placed into the environment of executed commands -- users
of glibc had too many problems with it.

nn. Reorganized the code that generates signames.h. The signal_names list
is now more complete but may be slightly different (SIGABRT is favored
over SIGIOT, for example). The preferred signal names are those
listed in the POSIX.2 standard.
oo. `bashbug' now uses a filename shorter than 14 characters for its
temporary file, and asks for confirmation before sending the bug
report.
pp. A bug that caused TAB completion in vi editing mode to not be turned
off when `set -o posix' was executed or back on when `set +o posix'
was executed was fixed.
qq. A bug in the brace expansion code that caused brace expansions appearing
in new-style $(...) command substitutions to be inappropriately expanded
was fixed.
rr. A bug in the readline hook shell-expand-line that could cause memory to
be inappropriately freed was fixed.
ss. A bug that caused some arithmetic expressions containing `&&' and `||'
to be parsed with the wrong precedence has been fixed.
tt. References to unbound variables after `set -u' has been executed now
cause the shell to exit immediately, as they should.
uu. A bug that caused the shell to exit inappropriately when `set -e' had
been executed and a command's return status was being inverted with the
`!' reserved word was fixed.
vv. A bug that could occasionally cause the shell to crash with a
divide-by-zero error when timing a command was fixed.
ww. A bug that caused parameter pattern substitution to leave stray
backslashes in the replacement string when the expression is in
double quotes was fixed.
xx. The `break' and `continue' builtins now break out of all loops when an
invalid count argument is supplied.
yy. Fixed a bug that caused PATH to be set to the empty string if
`command -p' is executed with PATH unset.
zz. Fixed `kill -l signum' to print the signal name without the `SIG' prefix,
as POSIX specifies.
aaa. Fixed a bug that caused the shell to crash while setting $SHELLOPTS
if there were no shell options set.
bbb. Fixed èxport -p' and `readonly -p' so that when the shell is in POSIX
mode, their output is as POSIX.2 specifies.
ccc. Fixed a bug in `readonly' so that `readonly -a avar=(...)' actually
creates an array variable.
ddd. Fixed a bug that prevented `time' from correctly timing background
pipelines.
2.
Changes to Readline
a.
A bug that caused an extra newline to be printed when the cursor was on
an otherwise empty line was fixed.
b.
An instance of memory being used after it was freed was corrected.
c.
The redisplay code now works when the prompt is longer than the screen
width.
d.
`dump-macros' is now a bindable name, as it should have been all along.
e.
Non-printable characters are now expanded when displaying macros and

their values.
f.
The `dump-variables' and `dump-macros' commands now output a leading

newline if they're called as the result of a key sequence, rather
than directly by an application.
3.
a.
There is a new builtin array variable: GROUPS, the set of groups to which
the user belongs. This is used by the test suite.
4.
a.
If a key sequence bound to ùniversal-argument' is read while reading a

numeric argument started with ùniversal-argument', it terminates the
argument but is otherwise ignored. This provides a way to insert multiple
instances of a digit string, and is how GNU emacs does it.

1.
Changes to Bash
a.
Fix to the `getopts' builtin so that it does the right thing when a
required option argument is not present.
b.
The completion code now updates the common prefix of matched names
after FIGNORE processing is done, since any names that were removed
may have changed the common prefix.
c.
Fixed a bug that made messages in MAILPATH entries not work correctly.
d.
Fixed a serious documentation error in the description of the new

${parameter:offset[:length]} expansion.
e.
Fixes to make parameter substring expansion ({$param:offset[:length]})

work when within double quotes.
f.
Fixes to make Â (CTLESC) survive an unquoted expansion of positional

parameters.
g.
Corrected a misspelling of ùnlimited' in the output of ùlimit'.
h.
Fixed a bug that caused executable scripts without a leading `#!' to

occasionally pick up the wrong set of positional parameters.
i.
Linux systems now have a working ùlimit -v', using RLIMIT_AS.
j.
Updated config.guess so that many more machine types are recognized.
k.
Fixed a bug with backslash-quoted slashes in the ${param/pat[/sub]}

expansion.
l.
If the shell is named `-su', and `-c command' is supplied, read and
execute the login shell startup files even though the shell is not
interactive. This is to support the `-' option to `su'.
m.
Fixed a bug that caused core dumps when the DEBUG trap was ignored
with `trap "" DEBUG' and a shell function was subsequently executed.
n.
Fixed a bug that caused core dumps in the read builtin when IFS was
set to the null string and the input had leading whitespace.
2.
Changes to Readline
a.
Fixed a bug that caused a numeric argument of 1024 to be ignored when

inserting text.
b.
Fixed the display code so that the numeric argument is displayed as it's
being entered.
c.
Fixed the numeric argument reading code so that `M-- command' is

equivalent to `M--1 command', as the prompt implies.
3.
a.
ùlimit' now sets both hard and soft limits and reports the soft limit
by default (when neither -H nor -S is specified). This is compatible
with versions of sh and ksh that implement ùlimit'.
b.
Integer constants have been extended to base 64.
4.
a.
The `home' and ènd' keys are now bound to beginning-of-line and
end-of-line, respectively, if the corresponding termcap capabilities
are present.

1.
Changes to Bash
a.
System-specific changes for: AIX 4.2, SCO 3.2v[45], HP-UX.
b.
When in POSIX mode, variable assignments preceding a special builtin

persist in the shell environment after the builtin completes.
c.
Changed all calls to getwd() to getcwd(). Improved check for systems

where the libc getcwd() calls popen(), since that breaks on some
systems when job control is being used.
d.
Fixed a bug that caused seg faults when executing scripts with the
execute bit set but without a leading `#!'.
e.
The environment passed to executed commands is never sorted.
f.
A bug was fixed in the code that expands ${name[@]} to the number of
elements in an array variable.
g.
A bug was fixed in the array compound assignment code ( A=( ... ) ).
h.
Window size changes now correctly propagate down to readline if

the shopt `checkwinsize' option is enabled.
i.
A fix was made in the code that expands to the length of a variable
value (${#var}).
j.
A fix was made to the command builtin so that it did not turn on the
`no fork' flag inappropriately.
k.
A fix was made to make `set -n' work more reliably.
l.
A fix was made to the job control initialization code so that the
terminal process group is set to the shell's process group if the
shell changes its own process group.
2.
Changes to Readline
a.
System-specific changes for: SCO 3.2v[45].
b.
The behavior of the vi-mode `.' when redoing an ì' command was changed
to insert the text previously inserted by the ì' command rather than
simply entering insert mode.
3.
New features in Bash
a.
There is a new version of the autoload function package, in

examples/functions/autoload.v2, that uses arrays and provides more
functionality.
b.
Support for LC_COLLATE and locale-specific sorting of the results of

pathname expansion if strcoll() is available.
4.
a.
Support for locale-specific sorting of completion possibilities if

strcoll() is available.

1.
Changes to Bash
a.
`pushd -' is once again equivalent to `pushd $OLDPWD'.
b.
OS-specific changes for: SCO 3.2v[45].
c.
A change was made to the fix for the recently-reported security hole
when reading characters with octal value 255 to make it work better on
systems with restartable system calls when not using readline.
d.
Some changes were made to the test suite so that it works if you
configure bash with --enable-usg-echo-default.
e.
A fix was made to the parsing of conditional arithmetic expressions.
f.
Illegal arithmetic bases now cause an arithmetic evaluation error rather

than being silently reset.
g.
Multiple arithmetic bases now cause an arithmetic evaluation error

instead of being ignored.
h.
A fix was made to the evaluation of ${param?word} to conform to POSIX.2.
i.
A bug that sometimes caused array indices to be evaluated twice (which

would cause errors when they contained assignment statements) was fixed.
j.
ùlimit' was rewritten to avoid problems with getrlimit(2) returning

unsigned values and to simplify the code.
k.
A bug in the command-oriented-history code that caused it to sometimes

put semicolons after right parens inappropriately was fixed.
l.
The values inserted into the prompt by the \w and \W escape sequences
are now quoted to prevent further expansion.
m.
An interactive shell invoked as `sh' now reads and executes commands

from the file named by $ENV when it starts up. If it's a login shell,
it does this after reading /etc/profile and ~/.profile.
n.
The file named by $ENV is never read by non-interactive shells.
2.
Changes to Readline
a.
A few changes were made to hide some macros and functions that should not
be public.
b.
An off-by-one error that caused seg faults in the history expansion code
was fixed.
3.
a.
The ksh-style ((...)) arithmetic command was implemented. It is exactly

identical to let "...". This is controlled by a new option to configure,
`--enable-dparen-arithmetic', which is on by default.
b.
There is a new #define available in config.h.top: SYS_BASH_LOGOUT. If

defined to a filename, bash reads and executes commands from that file
when a login shell exits. It's commented out by default.
c.
ùlimit' has a `-l' option that reports the maximum amount of data that
may be locked into memory on 4.4BSD-based systems.

1.
Changes to Bash
a.
A bug that sometimes caused traps to be ignored on signals the

shell treats specially was fixed.
b.
The internationalization code was changed to track the values of

LC_* variables and call setlocale() as appropriate. The TEXTDOMAIN
and TEXTDOMAINDIR variables are also tracked; changes cause calls
to textdomain() and bindtextdomain(), if available.
c.
A bug was fixed that sometimes caused double-quoted strings to be

parsed incorrectly.
d.
Changes were made so that the siglist code compiles correctly on

Solaris 2.5.
e.
Added `:' to the set of characters that cause word breaks for the
completion code so that pathnames in assignments to $PATH can be
completed.
f.
The `select' command was fixed to print $PS3 to stderr.
g.
Fixed an error in the manual page section describing the effect that
setting and unsetting GLOBIGNORE has on the setting of the `dotglob'
option.
h.
The time conversion code now uses CLK_TCK rather than CLOCKS_PER_SEC
on systems without gettimeofday() and resources.
i.
The getopt static variables are now initialized each time a subshell
is started, so subshells using `getopts' work right.
j.
A sign-extension bug that caused a possible security hole was fixed.
k.
The parser now reads characters between backquotes within a doublequoted string as a single word, so double quotes in the backquoted
string don't terminate the enclosing double-quoted string.
l.
A bug that caused `Ô' to work incorrectly when typed as the first
thing to an interactive shell was fixed.
m.
A rarely-exercised off-by-one error in the code that quotes variable

values was fixed.
n.
Some memory and file descriptor leaks encountered when running a

shell script that is executable but does not have a leading `#!'
were plugged.
2.
Changes to Readline
a.
A bug that sometimes caused incorrect results when trying to read

typeahead on systems without FIONREAD was fixed.
3.
a.
The command timing code now uses the value of the TIMEFORMAT variable
to format and display timing statistics.
b.
The `time' reserved word now accepts a `-p' option to force the
POSIX.2 output format.
c.
There are a couple of new and updated scripts to convert csh startup
files to bash format.
d.
There is a new builtin array variable: BASH_VERSINFO. The various

members hold the parts of the version information in BASH_VERSION,
plus the value of MACHTYPE.
4.
a.
Setting LANG to èn_US.ISO8859-1' now causes readline to enter

eight-bit mode.

1.
Changes to Bash
a.
There is better detection of rsh connections on Solaris 2.
b.
Assignments to read-only variables preceding a command name are now

variable assignment errors. Variable assignment errors cause
non-interactive shells running in posix mode to exit.
c.
The word tokenizer was rewritten to handle nested quotes and pairs
('', "", ``, ${...}, $(...), $[...], $'...', $"...", <(...), >(...))
correctly. Some of the parameter expansion code was updated as a
consequence.
d.
A fix was made to `test' when given three arguments so that a binary
operator is checked for first, before checking that the first argument
is `!'.
e.
2''>/dev/null is no longer equivalent to 2>/dev/null.
f.
Parser error messages were regularized, and in most cases the name of
the shell script being read by a non-interactive shell is not printed
twice.
g.
A fix was made to the completion code so that it no longer removes the
text the user typed in some cases.
h.
The special glibc `getopt' environment variable is no longer put into

the environment on machines with small values of ARG_MAX.
i.
The expansion of ${...} now follows the POSIX.2 rules for finding the
closing `}'.
j.
The shell no longer displays spurious status messages for background

jobs in shell scripts that complete successfully when the script is
run from a terminal.
k.
`shopt -o' now correctly updates $SHELLOPTS.
l.
A bug that caused the $PATH searching code to return a non-executable

file even when an executable file with the same name appeared later in
$PATH was fixed.
m.
The shell now does tilde expansions on unquoted `:~' in assignment

statements when not in posix mode.
n.
Variable assignment errors when a command consists only of assignments

now cause non-interactive shells to exit when in posix mode.
o.
If the variable in a `for' or `select' command is read-only, or not a

legal shell identifier, a variable assignment error occurs.
p.
`test' now handles `-a' and `-o' as binary operators when three arguments
are supplied, and correctly parses `( word )' as equivalent to `word'.
q.
`test' was fixed so that file names of the form /dev/fd/NN mean the same
thing on all systems, even Linux.
r.
Fixed a bug in the globbing code that caused patterns with multiple
consecutive `*'s to not be matched correctly.
s.
Fixed a bug that caused $PS2 to not be printed when an interactive shell
not using readline is reading a here document.
t.
Fixed a bug that caused history expansion to be performed inappropriately

when a single-quoted string spanned more than one line.
u.
`getopts' now checks that the variable name passed by the user as the
second argument is a legal shell identifier and that the variable is
not read-only.
v.
Fixed `getopts' to obey POSIX.2 rules for setting $OPTIND when it

encounters an error.
w.
Fixed `set' to display variable values in a form that can be re-read.
x.
Fixed a bug in the code that keeps track of whether or not local variables
have been declared at the current level of function nesting.
y.
Non-interactive shells in posix mode now exit if the name in a function

declaration is not a legal identifier.
z.
The job control code now ignores stopped children when the shell is not
interactive.
aa. The `cd' builtin no longer attempts spelling correction on the directory
name if the shell is not interactive, regardless of the setting of the
`cdspell' option.
bb. Some OS-specific changes were made for SCO 3.2v[45] and AIX 4.2.
cc. `time' now prints its output to stderr, as POSIX.2 specifies.
2.
Fixes to Readline
a.
After printing possible completions, all lines of a multi-line prompt

are redisplayed.
b.
Some changes were made to the terminal handling code in rltty.c to

work around AIX 4.2 bugs.
3.
a.
There is a new loadable builtin: sprintf, with calling syntax

sprintf var format [args]
This provides an easy way to simulate ksh left- and right-justified
variable values.
b.
The expansions of \h and \H in prompt strings were swapped. \h now

expands to the hostname up to the first `.', as in bash-1.14.
4.
a.
The bash-1.14 behavior when ^M is typed while doing an incremental

search was restored. ^J may now be used to terminate the search without
accepting the line.
b.
There is a new bindable variable: disable-completion. This inhibits

word completion and causes the completion character to be inserted as
if it had been bound to self-insert.

There is now a file `COMPAT' included in the distribution that lists the
user-visible incompatibilities between 1.14 and 2.0.
1. Changes to Bash
a. Some work was done so that word splitting of the rhs of assignment
statements conforms more closely to historical practice.
b. A couple of errant memory frees were fixed.
c. A fix was made to the test builtin so it recognizes `<' and `>' as
binary operators.
d. The GNU malloc in lib/malloc/malloc.c now scrambles memory as it's
allocated and freed. This is to catch callers that refer to freed
memory or assume something about newly-allocated memory.
e. Fixed a problem with conversion to 12-hour time in the prompt

expansion code.
f. Fixed a problem with configure's argument parsing order. Now you can
correctly turn on specific options after using --enable-minimal-config.
g. The configure script now automatically disables the use of GNU malloc
on systems where it's appropriate (better than having people read the
NOTES file and do it manually).
h. There are new prompt expansions (\v and \V) to insert version information
into the prompt strings.
i. The default prompt string now includes the version number.
j. Most of the builtins that take no options were changed to use the
internal getopt so they can produce proper error messages for -?
and incorrect options.
k. Some system-specific changes were made for SVR4.2 and Solaris 2.5.
l. Bash now uses PATH_MAX instead of MAXPATHLEN and NAME_MAX instead of
MAXNAMLEN.
m. A couple of problems caused by uninitialized variables were fixed.
n. There are a number of new loadable builtin examples: logname, basename,
dirname, tty, pathchk, tee, head, and rmdir. All of these conform to
POSIX.2.
o. Bash now notices changes in TZ and calls tzset() if present, so
changing TZ will alter the time printed by prompt expansions.
p. The source was reorganized a bit so I don't have to wait so long for
some files to compile, and to facilitate the creation of a `shell
library' at some future point.
q. Bash no longer turns off job control if called as `sh', since the
POSIX.2 spec includes job control as a standard feature.
r. `bash -o posix' now works as intended.
s. Fixed a problem with the completion code: when completing a filename
that contained globbing characters, if show-all-if-ambiguous was set,
the completion code would remove the user's text.
t. Fixed ulimit so that (hopefully) the full range of limits is available
on HPUX systems.
u. A new `shopt' option (`hostcomplete') enables and disables hostname
completion.
v. The shell no longer attempts to save the history on an abort(),
which is usually called by programming_error().
w. The `-s' option to `fc' was changed to echo the command to be executed
to stderr instead of stdout.
x. If the editor invoked by `fc -e' exits with a non-zero status, no
commands are executed.
y. Fixed a bug that made the shopt `histverify' option work incorrectly.
z. There is a new variable `MACHTYPE' whose value is the GNU-style
`cpu-company-system' system description as set by configure.

values of MACHTYPE and HOSTTYPE should really be swapped.)
(The
aa. The ùlimit' builtin now allows the maximum virtual memory size to be
set via setrlimit(2) if RLIMIT_VMEM is defined.
bb. `bash -nc 'command'' no longer runs `command'.
2. Changes to Readline
a. Fixed a typo in the code that checked for FIONREAD in input.c.
b. Fixed a bug in the code that outputs keybindings, so things like C-\
are quoted properly.
c. Fixed a bug in the inputrc file parsing code to handle the problems
caused by inputrc files created from the output of `bind -p' in
previous versions of bash. The problem was due to the bug fixed
in item b above.
d. Readline no longer turns off the terminal's meta key, and turns it on
once the first time it's called.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------This file documents the changes between this version, bash-2.0-alpha2,
1. Changes to Bash
a. The shell no longer thinks directories are executable.
b. `disown' has a new option, `h', which inhibits the resending of SIGHUP
but does not remove the job from the jobs table.
c. The varargs functions in error.c now use ANSI-C `stdarg' if available.
d. The build process now treats the `build version' in .build as local to
the build directory, so different versions built from the same source
tree have different `build versions'.
e. Some problems with the grammar have been fixed. (It used `list' in a few
productions where `compound_list' was needed. A `list' must be terminated
with a newline or semicolon; a `compound_list' need not be.)
f. A fix was made to keep `wait' from hanging when waiting for all background
jobs.
g. `bash --help' now writes its output to stdout, like the GNU Coding Standards
specify, and includes the machine type (the value of MACHTYPE).
h. `bash --version' now prints more information and exits successfully, like
the GNU Coding Standards specify.
i. The output of `time' and `times' now prints fractional seconds with three
places after the decimal point.
j. A bug that caused process substitutions to screw up the pipeline printed
by `jobs' was fixed.
k. Fixes were made to the code that implements $'...' and $"..." so they
work as documented.
l. The process substitution code now opens named pipes for reading with
O_NONBLOCK to avoid hanging.
m. Fixes were made to the trap code so the shell cleans up correctly if the
trap command contains a `return' and we're executing a function or
sourcing a script with `.'.
n. Fixes to doc/Makefile.in so that it doesn't try to remake all of the
documentation (ps, dvi, etc.) on a `make install'.
o. Fixed an auto-increment error that caused bash -c args to sometimes dump
core.
p. Fixed a bug that caused $HISTIGNORE to fail when the history line
contained globbing characters.
2. Changes to Readline
a. There is a new string variable, rl_library_version, available for use by
applications. The current value is "2.1".
b. A bug encountered when expand-tilde was enabled and file completion was
attempted on a word beginning with `~/' was fixed.
c. A slight change was made to the incremental search termination behavior.
ESC still terminates the search, but if input is pending or arrives
within 0.1 seconds (on systems with select(2)), it is used as a prefix
character. This is intented to allow users to terminate searches with
the arrow keys and get the behavior they expect.

Changes in Bash Version 4.2 To Bash 4.3

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Changes in Bash Version 4.2 To Bash 4.3

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This document details the changes between this version, bash-4.

Only Posix-mode shells should exit on an assignment failure in the

Changed the handling of unquoted backslashes in regular expressions to be

globstar (**) no longer traverses symbolic links that resolve to

New Features in Bash

The [[ -v ]] option now understands array references (foo[1]) and returns

a. Fixed a bug that left variables set by printf -v marked as invisible.

interactive shell with job control enabled.

New Features in Bash

New Features in Readline

a. Fixed a bug in bash completion that caused a tilde to be expanded even if

to be set in order to actually change the current text domain.

a. Shared library building is now supported on Mac OS X 10.9 (Darwin 13).

New Features in Bash

a. `cd' has a new `-@' option to browse a file's extended attributes on

New Features in Readline

a. There are additional default key bindings for MinGW32

Fixed a bug that caused assignment to an unset variable using a negative

Fixed a bug that caused assignment to a string variable using a negative

Fixed a bug that caused some strings to be interpreted as invalid

Fixed a bug that caused an attempt to trap a signal whose disposition

Command completion now skips assignment statements preceding a command

Fixed a bug that caused `compgen -f' in a non-interactive shell to dump

Changed message when an incremental search fails to include "failed" in

Additional key bindings for arrow keys on MinGW.

New Features in Bash

The fc builtin now interprets -0 as the current command line.

Completing directory names containing shell variables now adds a trailing

slash if the expanded result is a directory.

New Features in Readline

rl_change_environment: new application-settable variable that controls

Fixed a bug that caused assignment statements preceding a command word to

Fixed a bug that caused constructs like 1<(2) to be interpreted as process

Fixed several cases where `invisible' variables (variables with attributes

Fixed a bug that caused trap handlers to be executed recursively,

m. Word expansions like ${foo##bar} now understand indirect variable

Fixed a bug that caused double-quoted strings to be scanned incorrectly

New Features in Bash

There is now a configure-time option to enable the globasciiranges option

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------This document details the changes between this version, bash-4.3-alpha,

Fixed several bugs concerning incomplete bracket expressions in filename

Fixed a bug that caused the RHS of an assignment statement to undergo

Fixed a bug that caused bash to go into an infinite loop if a filename

Fixed a bug that caused PS4 to end up being truncated if it is longer

System-specific updates for: DJGPP, HP/UX, Mac OS X

Fixed a bug in displaying commands that caused redirections to be associated

Added workarounds for FreeBSD's implementation of faccessat/eaccess and

There are changes to the expansions peformed on compound array assignments,

Bash now reports an error if `read -a name' is used when `name' is an

Fixed a bug that allowed an attempted assignment to a readonly variable

Fixed a bug that caused parsing a command substitution to overwrite the

for a background command on systems that recycle PIDs very quickly.

nnnn. Fixed a bug that could result in double evaluation of command

of the screen size in a signal handler context upon receiving a SIGWINCH.

Added a workaround for a wcwidth bug in Mac OS X that caused readline's

Fixed bugs that caused readline to execute code in a signal handler

Fixed a bug that caused Readline's signal handlers to be installed beyond

Fixed a bug that caused ignoring case in completion matches to result in

Paren matching now works in vi insert mode.

m. Fix menu-completion to make show-all-if-ambiguous and menu-complete-displayprefix

Fixed a bug that caused binding a macro to a multi-character key sequence

Fixed several redisplay errors with multibyte characters and prompts