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The Open Group Base Specifications Issue 8

IEEE Std 1003.1-2024
Copyright © 2001-2024 The IEEE and The Open Group

2. Shell Command Language

This chapter contains the definition of the Shell Command Language.

2.1 Shell Introduction

The shell is a command language interpreter. This chapter describes the syntax of that command language as it is
used by the sh utility and the system() and popen() functions defined in the System Interfaces volume of POSIX.1-
2024.

The shell operates according to the following general overview of operations. The specific details are included in the
cited sections of this chapter.

1. The shell reads its input from a file (see sh), from the -c option or from the system() and popen() functions
defined in the System Interfaces volume of POSIX.1-2024. If the first line of a file of shell commands starts
with the characters "#!", the results are unspecified.

2. The shell breaks the input into tokens: words and operators; see 2.3 Token Recognition.

3. The shell parses the input into simple commands (see 2.9.1 Simple Commands) and compound commands
(see 2.9.4 Compound Commands).

4. For each word within a command, the shell processes <backslash>-escape sequences inside dollar-single-
quotes (see 2.2.4 Dollar-Single-Quotes) and then performs various word expansions (see 2.6 Word
Expansions). In the case of a simple command, the results usually include a list of pathnames and fields to be
treated as a command name and arguments; see 2.9 Shell Commands.

5. The shell performs redirection (see 2.7 Redirection) and removes redirection operators and their operands
from the parameter list.

6. The shell executes a function (see 2.9.5 Function Definition Command), built-in (see 2.15 Special Built-In
Utilities), executable file, or script, giving the names of the arguments as positional parameters numbered 1
to n, and the name of the command (or in the case of a function within a script, the name of the script) as
special parameter 0 (see 2.9.1.4 Command Search and Execution).

7. The shell optionally waits for the command to complete and collects the exit status (see 2.8.2 Exit Status for
Commands).

2.2 Quoting

Quoting is used to remove the special meaning of certain characters or words to the shell. Quoting can be used to
preserve the literal meaning of the special characters in the next paragraph, prevent reserved words from being
recognized as such, and prevent parameter expansion and command substitution within here-document processing
(see 2.7.4 Here-Document ).

The application shall quote the following characters if they are to represent themselves:

| & ; < > ( ) $ ` \ " ' <space> <tab> <newline>

and the following might need to be quoted under certain circumstances. That is, these characters are sometimes
special depending on conditions described elsewhere in this volume of POSIX.1-2024:

* ? [ ] ^ - ! # ~ = % { , }

Note:
A future version of this standard may extend the conditions under which these characters are special.
Therefore applications should quote them whenever they are intended to represent themselves. This does not
apply to <hyphen-minus> ('-') since it is in the portable filename character set.

The various quoting mechanisms are the escape character, single-quotes, double-quotes, and dollar-single-quotes.
The here-document represents another form of quoting; see 2.7.4 Here-Document.

2.2.1 Escape Character (Backslash)

A <backslash> that is not quoted shall preserve the literal value of the following character, with the exception of a
<newline>. If a <newline> immediately follows the <backslash>, the shell shall interpret this as line continuation. The
<backslash> and <newline> shall be removed before splitting the input into tokens. Since the escaped <newline> is
removed entirely from the input and is not replaced by any white space, it cannot serve as a token separator.

2.2.2 Single-Quotes

Enclosing characters in single-quotes ('') shall preserve the literal value of each character within the single-quotes.
A single-quote cannot occur within single-quotes.

2.2.3 Double-Quotes

Enclosing characters in double-quotes ("") shall preserve the literal value of all characters within the double-quotes,
with the exception of the characters backquote, <dollar-sign>, and <backslash>, as follows:

$
The <dollar-sign> shall retain its special meaning introducing parameter expansion (see 2.6.2 Parameter
Expansion), a form of command substitution (see 2.6.3 Command Substitution), and arithmetic expansion (see
2.6.4 Arithmetic Expansion), but shall not retain its special meaning introducing the dollar-single-quotes form
of quoting (see 2.2.4 Dollar-Single-Quotes).

The input characters within the quoted string that are also enclosed between "$(" and the matching ')'
shall not be affected by the double-quotes, but rather shall define the command(s) whose output replaces the
"$(...)" when the word is expanded. The tokenizing rules in 2.3 Token Recognition shall be applied
recursively to find the matching ')'.

For the four varieties of parameter expansion that provide for substring processing (see 2.6.2 Parameter
Expansion), within the string of characters from an enclosed "${" to the matching '}', the double-quotes
within which the expansion occurs shall have no effect on the handling of any special characters.

For parameter expansions other than the four varieties that provide for substring processing, within the
string of characters from an enclosed "${" to the matching '}', the double-quotes within which the
expansion occurs shall preserve the literal value of all characters, with the exception of the characters double-
quote, backquote, <dollar-sign>, and <backslash>. If any unescaped double-quote characters occur within the
string, other than in embedded command substitutions, the behavior is unspecified. The backquote and
<dollar-sign> characters shall follow the same rules as for characters in double-quotes described in this
section. The <backslash> character shall follow the same rules as for characters in double-quotes described in
this section except that it shall additionally retain its special meaning as an escape character when followed by
 '}' and this shall prevent the escaped '}' from being considered when determining the matching '}' (using
the rule in 2.6.2 Parameter Expansion).
`
The backquote shall retain its special meaning introducing the other form of command substitution (see 2.6.3
Command Substitution). The portion of the quoted string from the initial backquote and the characters up to
the next backquote that is not preceded by a <backslash>, having escape characters removed, defines that
command whose output replaces "`...`" when the word is expanded. Either of the following cases
produces undefined results:

A quoted (single-quoted, double-quoted, or dollar-single-quoted) string that begins, but does not end,
within the "`...`" sequence

A "`...`" sequence that begins, but does not end, within the same double-quoted string

\
Outside of "$(...)" and "${...}" the <backslash> shall retain its special meaning as an escape character
(see 2.2.1 Escape Character (Backslash)) only when immediately followed by one of the following characters:

$ ` \ <newline>

or by a double-quote character that would otherwise be considered special (see 2.6.4 Arithmetic Expansion
and 2.7.4 Here-Document).

When double-quotes are used to quote a parameter expansion, command substitution, or arithmetic expansion, the
literal value of all characters within the result of the expansion shall be preserved.

The application shall ensure that a double-quote that is not within "$(...)" nor within "${...}" is immediately
preceded by a <backslash> in order to be included within double-quotes. The parameter '@' has special meaning
inside double-quotes and is described in 2.5.2 Special Parameters.

2.2.4 Dollar-Single-Quotes

A sequence of characters starting with a <dollar-sign> immediately followed by a single-quote ($') shall preserve the
literal value of all characters up to an unescaped terminating single-quote ('), with the exception of certain
<backslash>-escape sequences, as follows:

\" yields a <quotation-mark> (double-quote) character, but note that <quotation-mark> can be included
unescaped.

\' yields an <apostrophe> (single-quote) character.

\\ yields a <backslash> character.

\a yields an <alert> character.

\b yields a <backspace> character.

\e yields an <ESC> character.

\f yields a <form-feed> character.

\n yields a <newline> character.

\r yields a <carriage-return> character.

\t yields a <tab> character.

\v yields a <vertical-tab> character.

 \cX yields the control character listed in the Value column of Values for cpio c_mode Field in the OPERANDS
section of the stty utility when X is one of the characters listed in the ^c column of the same table, except that
\c\\ yields the <FS> control character since the <backslash> character has to be escaped.

\xXX yields the byte whose value is the hexadecimal value XX (one or more hexadecimal digits). If more than
two hexadecimal digits follow \x, the results are unspecified.

\ddd yields the byte whose value is the octal value ddd (one to three octal digits).

The behavior of an unescaped <backslash> immediately followed by any other character, including <newline>,
is unspecified.

In cases where a variable number of characters can be used to specify an escape sequence (\xXX and \ddd), the
escape sequence shall be terminated by the first character that is not of the expected type or, for \ddd sequences,
when the maximum number of characters specified has been found, whichever occurs first.

These <backslash>-escape sequences shall be processed (replaced with the bytes or characters they yield)
immediately prior to word expansion (see 2.6 Word Expansions) of the word in which the dollar-single-quotes
sequence occurs.

If a \xXX or \ddd escape sequence yields a byte whose value is 0, it is unspecified whether that null byte is included
in the result or if that byte and any following regular characters and escape sequences up to the terminating
unescaped single-quote are evaluated and discarded.

If the octal value specified by \ddd will not fit in a byte, the results are unspecified.

If a \e or \cX escape sequence specifies a character that does not have an encoding in the locale in effect when
these <backslash>-escape sequences are processed, the result is implementation-defined. However,
implementations shall not replace an unsupported character with bytes that do not form valid characters in that
locale's character set.

If a <backslash>-escape sequence represents a single-quote character (for example \'), that sequence shall not
terminate the dollar-single-quote sequence.

2.3 Token Recognition

The shell shall read its input in terms of lines. (For details about how the shell reads its input, see the description of
sh.) The input lines can be of unlimited length. These lines shall be parsed using two major modes: ordinary token
recognition and processing of here-documents.

When an io_here token has been recognized by the grammar (see 2.10 Shell Grammar), one or more of the
subsequent lines immediately following the next NEWLINE token form the body of a here-document and shall be
parsed according to the rules of 2.7.4 Here-Document. Any non-NEWLINE tokens (including more io_here tokens)
that are recognized while searching for the next NEWLINE token shall be saved for processing after the here-
document has been parsed. If a saved token is an io_here token, the corresponding here-document shall start on
the line immediately following the line containing the trailing delimiter of the previous here-document. If any saved
token includes a <newline> character, the behavior is unspecified.

When it is not processing an io_here, the shell shall break its input into tokens by applying the first applicable rule
below to each character in turn in its input. At the start of input or after a previous token has just been delimited, the
first or next token, respectively, shall start with the first character that has not already been included in a token and
is not discarded according to the rules below. Once a token has started, zero or more characters from the input shall
be appended to the token until the end of the token is delimited according to one of the rules below. When both the
start and end of a token have been delimited, the characters forming the token shall be exactly those in the input
between the two delimiters, including any quoting characters. If a rule below indicates that a token is delimited, and
no characters have been included in the token, that empty token shall be discarded.
 1. If the end of input is recognized, the current token (if any) shall be delimited.

2. If the previous character was used as part of an operator and the current character is not quoted and can be
used with the previous characters to form an operator, it shall be used as part of that (operator) token.

3. If the previous character was used as part of an operator and the current character cannot be used with the
previous characters to form an operator, the operator containing the previous character shall be delimited.

4. If the current character is an unquoted <backslash>, single-quote, or double-quote or is the first character of
an unquoted <dollar-sign> single-quote sequence, it shall affect quoting for subsequent characters up to the
end of the quoted text. The rules for quoting are as described in 2.2 Quoting. During token recognition no
substitutions shall be actually performed, and the result token shall contain exactly the characters that appear
in the input unmodified, including any embedded or enclosing quotes or substitution operators, between the
start and the end of the quoted text. The token shall not be delimited by the end of the quoted field.

5. If the current character is an unquoted '$' or '`', the shell shall identify the start of any candidates for
parameter expansion ( 2.6.2 Parameter Expansion), command substitution ( 2.6.3 Command Substitution), or
arithmetic expansion ( 2.6.4 Arithmetic Expansion) from their introductory unquoted character sequences:
'$' or "${", "$(" or '`', and "$((", respectively. The shell shall read sufficient input to determine the end
of the unit to be expanded (as explained in the cited sections). While processing the characters, if instances of
expansions or quoting are found nested within the substitution, the shell shall recursively process them in the
manner specified for the construct that is found. For "$(" and '`' only, if instances of io_here tokens are
found nested within the substitution, they shall be parsed according to the rules of 2.7.4 Here-Document; if
the terminating ')' or '`' of the substitution occurs before the NEWLINE token marking the start of the
here-document, the behavior is unspecified. The characters found from the beginning of the substitution to
its end, allowing for any recursion necessary to recognize embedded constructs, shall be included unmodified
in the result token, including any embedded or enclosing substitution operators or quotes. The token shall
not be delimited by the end of the substitution.

6. If the current character is not quoted and can be used as the first character of a new operator, the current
token (if any) shall be delimited. The current character shall be used as the beginning of the next (operator)
token.

7. If the current character is an unquoted <blank>, any token containing the previous character is delimited and
the current character shall be discarded.

8. If the previous character was part of a word, the current character shall be appended to that word.

9. If the current character is a '#', it and all subsequent characters up to, but excluding, the next <newline>
shall be discarded as a comment. The <newline> that ends the line is not considered part of the comment.

10. The current character is used as the start of a new word.

Once a token is delimited, it is categorized as required by the grammar in 2.10 Shell Grammar.

In situations where the shell parses its input as a program, once a complete_command has been recognized by the
grammar (see 2.10 Shell Grammar), the complete_command shall be executed before the next complete_command is
tokenized and parsed.

2.3.1 Alias Substitution

After a token has been categorized as type TOKEN (see 2.10.1 Shell Grammar Lexical Conventions), including
(recursively) any token resulting from an alias substitution, the TOKEN shall be subject to alias substitution if all of
the following conditions are true:

The TOKEN does not contain any quoting characters.

 The TOKEN is a valid alias name (see XBD 3.10 Alias Name).

An alias with that name is in effect.

The TOKEN did not either fully or, optionally, partially result from an alias substitution of the same alias name
at any earlier recursion level.

Either the TOKEN is being considered for alias substitution because it follows an alias substitution whose
replacement value ended with a <blank> (see below) or the TOKEN could be parsed as the command name
word of a simple command (see 2.10 Shell Grammar), based on this TOKEN and the tokens (if any) that
preceded it, but ignoring whether any subsequent characters would allow that.

except that if the TOKEN meets the above conditions and would be recognized as a reserved word (see 2.4 Reserved
Words) if it occurred in an appropriate place in the input, it is unspecified whether the TOKEN is subject to alias
substitution.

When a TOKEN is subject to alias substitution, the value of the alias shall be processed as if it had been read from
the input instead of the TOKEN, with token recognition (see 2.3 Token Recognition) resuming at the start of the alias
value. When the end of the alias value is reached, the shell may behave as if an additional <space> character had
been read from the input after the TOKEN that was replaced. If it does not add this <space>, it is unspecified
whether the current token is delimited before token recognition is applied to the character (if any) that followed the
TOKEN in the input.

Note:
A future version of this standard may disallow adding this <space>.

If the value of the alias replacing the TOKEN ends in a <blank> that would be unquoted after substitution, and
optionally if it ends in a <blank> that would be quoted after substitution, the shell shall check the next token in the
input, if it is a TOKEN, for alias substitution; this process shall continue until a TOKEN is found that is not a valid alias
or an alias value does not end in such a <blank>.

An implementation may defer the effect of a change to an alias but the change shall take effect no later than the
completion of the currently executing complete_command (see 2.10 Shell Grammar). Changes to aliases shall not take
effect out of order. Implementations may provide predefined aliases that are in effect when the shell is invoked.

When used as specified by this volume of POSIX.1-2024, alias definitions shall not be inherited by separate
invocations of the shell or by the utility execution environments invoked by the shell; see 2.13 Shell Execution
Environment .

2.4 Reserved Words

Reserved words are words that have special meaning to the shell; see 2.9 Shell Commands. The following words
shall be recognized as reserved words:

! do esac in
{ done fi then
} elif for until
case else if while

This recognition shall only occur when none of the characters is quoted and when the word is used as:

The first word of a command

The first word following one of the reserved words other than case, for, or in
The third word in a case command (only in is valid in this case)
 The third word in a for command (only in and do are valid in this case)

See the grammar in 2.10 Shell Grammar.

When used in circumstances where reserved words are recognized (described above), the following words may be
recognized as reserved words, in which case the results are unspecified except as described below for time:

[[ ]] function namespace select time

When the word time is recognized as a reserved word in circumstances where it would, if it were not a reserved
word, be the command name (see 2.9.1.1 Order of Processing) of a simple command that would execute the time
utility in a manner other than one for which time states that the results are unspecified, the behavior shall be as
specified for the time utility.

When used in circumstances where reserved words are recognized (described above), all words whose final
character is a <colon> (':') are reserved; their use in those circumstances produces unspecified results.

2.5 Parameters and Variables

A parameter can be denoted by a name, a number, or one of the special characters listed in 2.5.2 Special
Parameters. A variable is a parameter denoted by a name.

A parameter is set if it has an assigned value (null is a valid value). Once a variable is set, it can only be unset by
using the unset special built-in command.

Parameters can contain arbitrary byte sequences, except for the null byte. The shell shall process their values as
characters only when performing operations that are described in this standard in terms of characters.

2.5.1 Positional Parameters

A positional parameter is a parameter denoted by a decimal representation of a positive integer. The digits denoting
the positional parameters shall always be interpreted as a decimal value, even if there is a leading zero. When a
positional parameter with more than one digit is specified, the application shall enclose the digits in braces (see
2.6.2 Parameter Expansion).

Examples:

"$8", "${8}", "${08}", "${008}", etc. all expand to the value of the eighth positional parameter.
"${10}" expands to the value of the tenth positional parameter.
"$10" expands to the value of the first positional parameter followed by the character '0'.

Note:
0 is a special parameter, not a positional parameter, and therefore the results of expanding ${00} are
unspecified.

Positional parameters are initially assigned when the shell is invoked (see sh), temporarily replaced when a shell
function is invoked (see 2.9.5 Function Definition Command), and can be reassigned with the set special built-in
command.

2.5.2 Special Parameters

Listed below are the special parameters and the values to which they shall expand. Only the values of the special
parameters are listed; see 2.6 Word Expansions for a detailed summary of all the stages involved in expanding
words.

@
Expands to the positional parameters, starting from one, initially producing one field for each positional
parameter that is set. When the expansion occurs in a context where field splitting will be performed, any
empty fields may be discarded and each of the non-empty fields shall be further split as described in 2.6.5
Field Splitting. When the expansion occurs within double-quotes, the behavior is unspecified unless one of the
following is true:
Field splitting as described in 2.6.5 Field Splitting would be performed if the expansion were not within
double-quotes (regardless of whether field splitting would have any effect; for example, if IFS is null).
The double-quotes are within the word of a ${parameter:-word} or a ${parameter:+word} expansion (with
or without the <colon>; see 2.6.2 Parameter Expansion) which would have been subject to field splitting
if parameter had been expanded instead of word.

If one of these conditions is true, the initial fields shall be retained as separate fields, except that if the
parameter being expanded was embedded within a word, the first field shall be joined with the beginning
part of the original word and the last field shall be joined with the end part of the original word. In all other
contexts the results of the expansion are unspecified. If there are no positional parameters, the expansion of
'@' shall generate zero fields, even when '@' is within double-quotes; however, if the expansion is embedded
within a word which contains one or more other parts that expand to a quoted null string, these null string(s)
shall still produce an empty field, except that if the other parts are all within the same double-quotes as the
'@', it is unspecified whether the result is zero fields or one empty field.

*
Expands to the positional parameters, starting from one, initially producing one field for each positional
parameter that is set. When the expansion occurs in a context where field splitting will be performed, any
empty fields may be discarded and each of the non-empty fields shall be further split as described in 2.6.5
Field Splitting. When the expansion occurs in a context where field splitting will not be performed, the initial
fields shall be joined to form a single field with the value of each parameter separated by the first character of
the IFS variable if IFS contains at least one character, or separated by a <space> if IFS is unset, or with no
separation if IFS is set to a null string.
#
Expands to the shortest representation of the decimal number of positional parameters. The command name
(parameter 0) shall not be counted in the number given by '#' because it is a special parameter, not a
positional parameter.
?
Expands to the shortest representation of the decimal exit status (see 2.8.2 Exit Status for Commands) of the
pipeline (see 2.9.2 Pipelines) executed from the current shell execution environment (not a subshell
environment) that most recently either terminated or, optionally but only if the shell is interactive and job
control is enabled, was stopped by a signal. If this pipeline terminated, the status value shall be its exit status;
otherwise, the status value shall be the same as the exit status that would have resulted if the pipeline had
been terminated by a signal with the same number as the signal that stopped it. The value of the special
parameter '?' shall be set to 0 during initialization of the shell. When a subshell environment is created, the
value of the special parameter '?' from the invoking shell environment shall be preserved in the subshell.
Note:
In var=$(some_command); echo $? the output is the exit status of some_command, which is executed
in a subshell environment, but this is because its exit status becomes the exit status of the assignment
command var=$(some_command) (see 2.9.1 Simple Commands) and this assignment command is the
most recently completed pipeline. Likewise for any pipeline consisting entirely of a simple command
that has no command word, but contains one or more command substitutions. (See 2.9.1 Simple
Commands.)
-
(Hyphen.) Expands to the current option flags (the single-letter option names concatenated into a string) as
specified on invocation, by the set special built-in command, or implicitly by the shell. It is unspecified whether
 the -c and -s options are included in the expansion of "$-". The -i option shall be included in "$-" if the shell
is interactive, regardless of whether it was specified on invocation.
$
Expands to the shortest representation of the decimal process ID of the invoked shell. In a subshell (see 2.13
Shell Execution Environment), '$' shall expand to the same value as that of the current shell.
!
Expands to the shortest representation of the decimal process ID associated with the most recent
asynchronous AND-OR list (see 2.9.3.1 Asynchronous AND-OR Lists) executed from the current shell execution
environment, or to the shortest representation of the decimal process ID of the last command specified in the
currently executing pipeline in the job-control background job that most recently resumed execution through
the use of bg, whichever is the most recent.
0
(Zero.) Expands to the name of the shell or shell script. See sh for a detailed description of how this name is
derived.

See the description of the IFS variable in 2.5.3 Shell Variables.

2.5.3 Shell Variables

Variables shall be initialized from the environment (as defined by XBD 8. Environment Variables and the exec function
in the System Interfaces volume of POSIX.1-2024) and can be given new values with variable assignment commands.
Shell variables shall be initialized only from environment variables that have valid names. If a variable is initialized
from the environment, it shall be marked for export immediately; see the export special built-in. New variables can
be defined and initialized with variable assignments, with the read or getopts utilities, with the name parameter in a
for loop, with the ${name=word} expansion, or with other mechanisms provided as implementation extensions.

The following variables shall affect the execution of the shell:

ENV
[UP] The processing of the ENV shell variable shall be supported if the system supports the User Portability
Utilities option.

This variable, when and only when an interactive shell is invoked, shall be subjected to parameter expansion
(see 2.6.2 Parameter Expansion) by the shell and the resulting value shall be used as a pathname of a file.
Before any interactive commands are read, the shell shall tokenize (see 2.3 Token Recognition) the contents of
the file, parse the tokens as a program (see 2.10 Shell Grammar), and execute the resulting commands in the
current environment. (In other words, the contents of the ENV file are not parsed as a single compound_list.
This distinction matters because it influences when aliases take effect.) The file need not be executable. If the
expanded value of ENV is not an absolute pathname, the results are unspecified. ENV shall be ignored if the
user's real and effective user IDs or real and effective group IDs are different.

HOME
The pathname of the user's home directory. The contents of HOME are used in tilde expansion (see 2.6.1 Tilde
Expansion).
IFS
A string treated as a list of characters that is used for field splitting, expansion of the '*' special parameter,
and to split lines into fields with the read utility. If the value of IFS includes any bytes that do not form part of a
valid character, the results of field splitting, expansion of '*', and use of the read utility are unspecified.

If IFS is not set, it shall behave as normal for an unset variable, except that field splitting by the shell and line
splitting by the read utility shall be performed as if the value of IFS is <space><tab><newline>; see 2.6.5 Field
Splitting.

The shell shall set IFS to <space><tab><newline> when it is invoked.

LANG
Provide a default value for the internationalization variables that are unset or null. (See XBD 8.2
Internationalization Variables for the precedence of internationalization variables used to determine the values
of locale categories.)
LC_ALL
The value of this variable overrides the LC_* variables and LANG , as described in XBD 8. Environment Variables.
LC_COLLATE
Determine the behavior of range expressions, equivalence classes, and multi-character collating elements
within pattern matching.
LC_CTYPE
Determine the interpretation of sequences of bytes of text data as characters (for example, single-byte as
opposed to multi-byte characters), which characters are defined as letters (character class alpha) and <blank>
characters (character class blank), and the behavior of character classes within pattern matching. Changing
the value of LC_CTYPE after the shell has started shall not affect the lexical processing of shell commands in
the current shell execution environment or its subshells. Invoking a shell script or performing exec sh subjects
the new shell to the changes in LC_CTYPE .
LC_MESSAGES
Determine the language in which messages should be written.
LINENO
[UP] The processing of the LINENO shell variable shall be supported if the system supports the User
Portability Utilities option.

Set by the shell to a decimal number representing the current sequential line number (numbered starting
with 1) within a script or function before it executes each command. If the user unsets or resets LINENO , the
variable may lose its special meaning for the life of the shell. If the shell is not currently executing a script or
function, the value of LINENO is unspecified.

NLSPATH
[XSI] Determine the location of message catalogs for the processing of LC_MESSAGES .
PATH
A string formatted as described in XBD 8. Environment Variables, used to effect command interpretation; see
2.9.1.4 Command Search and Execution.
PPID
Set by the shell to the decimal value of its parent process ID during initialization of the shell. In a subshell (see
2.13 Shell Execution Environment), PPID shall be set to the same value as that of the parent of the current
shell. For example, echo $PPID and (echo $PPID ) would produce the same value.
PS1
[UP] The processing of the PS1 shell variable shall be supported if the system supports the User Portability
Utilities option.

Each time an interactive shell is ready to read a command, the value of this variable shall be subjected to
parameter expansion (see 2.6.2 Parameter Expansion) and exclamation-mark expansion (see below). Whether
the value is also subjected to command substitution (see 2.6.3 Command Substitution) or arithmetic
expansion (see 2.6.4 Arithmetic Expansion) or both is unspecified. After expansion, the value shall be written
to standard error.

The expansions shall be performed in two passes, where the result of the first pass is input to the second
pass. One of the passes shall perform only the exclamation-mark expansion described below. The other pass
shall perform the other expansion(s) according to the rules in 2.6 Word Expansions. Which of the two passes is
performed first is unspecified.

The default value shall be "$ ". For users who have specific additional implementation-defined privileges, the
default may be another, implementation-defined value.
 Exclamation-mark expansion: The shell shall replace each instance of the <exclamation-mark> character ('!')
with the history file number (see Command History List) of the next command to be typed. An <exclamation-
mark> character escaped by another <exclamation-mark> character (that is, "!!") shall expand to a single
<exclamation-mark> character.
PS2
[UP] The processing of the PS2 shell variable shall be supported if the system supports the User Portability
Utilities option.

Each time the user enters a <newline> prior to completing a command line in an interactive shell, the value of
this variable shall be subjected to parameter expansion (see 2.6.2 Parameter Expansion). Whether the value is
also subjected to command substitution (see 2.6.3 Command Substitution) or arithmetic expansion (see 2.6.4
Arithmetic Expansion) or both is unspecified. After expansion, the value shall be written to standard error. The
default value shall be "> ".

PS4
[UP] The processing of the PS4 shell variable shall be supported if the system supports the User Portability
Utilities option.

When an execution trace (set -x) is being performed, before each line in the execution trace, the value of this
variable shall be subjected to parameter expansion (see 2.6.2 Parameter Expansion). Whether the value is also
subjected to command substitution (see 2.6.3 Command Substitution) or arithmetic expansion (see 2.6.4
Arithmetic Expansion) or both is unspecified. After expansion, the value shall be written to standard error. The
default value shall be "+ ".

PWD
Set by the shell and by the cd utility. In the shell the value shall be initialized from the environment as follows.
If a value for PWD is passed to the shell in the environment when it is executed, the value is an absolute
pathname of the current working directory that is no longer than {PATH_MAX} bytes including the terminating
null byte, and the value does not contain any components that are dot or dot-dot, then the shell shall set PWD
to the value from the environment. Otherwise, if a value for PWD is passed to the shell in the environment
when it is executed, the value is an absolute pathname of the current working directory, and the value does
not contain any components that are dot or dot-dot, then it is unspecified whether the shell sets PWD to the
value from the environment or sets PWD to the pathname that would be output by pwd -P. Otherwise, the sh
utility sets PWD to the pathname that would be output by pwd -P. In cases where PWD is set to the value from
the environment, the value can contain components that refer to files of type symbolic link. In cases where
PWD is set to the pathname that would be output by pwd -P, if there is insufficient permission on the current
working directory, or on any parent of that directory, to determine what that pathname would be, the value of
PWD is unspecified. Assignments to this variable may be ignored. If an application sets or unsets the value of
PWD , the behaviors of the cd and pwd utilities are unspecified.

2.6 Word Expansions

This section describes the various expansions that are performed on words. Not all expansions are performed on
every word, as explained in the following sections and elsewhere in this chapter. The expansions that are performed
for a given word shall be performed in the following order:

1. Tilde expansion (see 2.6.1 Tilde Expansion), parameter expansion (see 2.6.2 Parameter Expansion), command
substitution (see 2.6.3 Command Substitution ), and arithmetic expansion (see 2.6.4 Arithmetic Expansion)
shall be performed, beginning to end. See item 5 in 2.3 Token Recognition.
2. Field splitting (see 2.6.5 Field Splitting) shall be performed on the portions of the fields generated by step 1.
3. Pathname expansion (see 2.6.6 Pathname Expansion) shall be performed, unless set -f is in effect.
4. Quote removal (see 2.6.7 Quote Removal), if performed, shall always be performed last.

Tilde expansions, parameter expansions, command substitutions, arithmetic expansions, and quote removals that
occur within a single word shall expand to a single field, except as described below. The shell shall create multiple
fields or no fields from a single word only as a result of field splitting, pathname expansion, or the following cases:

1. Parameter expansion of the special parameters '@' and '*', as described in 2.5.2 Special Parameters, can
create multiple fields or no fields from a single word.
2. When the expansion occurs in a context where field splitting will be performed, a word that contains all of the
following somewhere within it, before any expansions are applied, in the order specified:
an unquoted <left-curly-bracket> ('{') that is not immediately preceded by an unquoted <dollar-sign>
('$')
one or more unquoted <comma> (',') characters or a sequence that consists of two adjacent <period>
('.') characters surrounded by other characters (which can also be <period> characters)
an unquoted <right-curly-bracket> ('}')

may be subject to an additional implementation-defined form of expansion that can create multiple fields
from a single word. This expansion, if supported, shall be applied before all the other word expansions are
applied. The other expansions shall then be applied to each field that results from this expansion.

When the expansions in this section are performed other than in the context of preparing a command for execution,
they shall be carried out in the current shell execution environment.

When expanding words for a command about to be executed, and the word will be the command name or an
argument to the command, the expansions shall be carried out in the current shell execution environment. (The
environment for the command to be executed is unknown until the command word is known.)

When expanding the words in a command about to be executed that are used with variable assignments or
redirections, it is unspecified whether the expansions are carried out in the current execution environment or in the
environment of the command about to be executed.

The '$' character is used to introduce parameter expansion, command substitution, or arithmetic evaluation. If a
'$' that is neither within single-quotes nor escaped by a <backslash> is immediately followed by a character that is
not a <space>, not a <tab>, not a <newline>, and is not one of the following:

A numeric character
The name of one of the special parameters (see 2.5.2 Special Parameters)
A valid first character of a variable name
A <left-curly-bracket> ('{')
A <left-parenthesis>
A single-quote

the result is unspecified. If a '$' that is neither within single-quotes nor escaped by a <backslash> is immediately
followed by a <space>, <tab>, or a <newline>, or is not followed by any character, the '$' shall be treated as a literal
character.

2.6.1 Tilde Expansion

A "tilde-prefix" consists of an unquoted <tilde> character at the beginning of a word, followed by all of the characters
preceding the first unquoted <slash> in the word, or all the characters in the word if there is no <slash>. In an
assignment (see XBD 4.26 Variable Assignment), multiple tilde-prefixes can be used: one at the beginning of the word
(that is, following the <equals-sign> of the assignment), or one following any unquoted <colon>, or both. A tilde-
prefix in an assignment is terminated by the first unquoted <colon> or <slash>, or the end of the assignment word.

If the tilde-prefix consists of only the <tilde> character, it shall be replaced by the value of the variable HOME . If
HOME is unset, the results are unspecified.

Otherwise, the characters in the tilde-prefix following the <tilde> shall be treated as a possible login name from the
user database. If these characters do not form a portable login name (see the description of the LOGNAME
environment variable in XBD 8.3 Other Environment Variables), the results are unspecified.
Note:
Since the tilde-prefix is not subject to further word expansions after the <tilde> is removed to obtain the login
name, none of the following has a portable login name following the <tilde>:

~"string"
~'string'
~$var
~\/bin

owing to the presence of '"', '\'', '$', '\\', and '/' characters in the login name.

If the characters in the tilde-prefix following the <tilde> form a portable login name, the tilde-prefix shall be replaced
by a pathname of the initial working directory associated with the login name. The pathname shall be obtained as if
by using the getpwnam() function as defined in the System Interfaces volume of POSIX.1-2024. If the system does
not recognize the login name, the results are unspecified.

The pathname that replaces the tilde-prefix shall be treated as if quoted to prevent it being altered by field splitting
and pathname expansion; if a <slash> follows the tilde-prefix and the pathname ends with a <slash>, the trailing
<slash> from the pathname should be omitted from the replacement. If the word being expanded consists of only
the <tilde> character and HOME is set to the null string, this produces an empty field (as opposed to zero fields) as
the expanded word.

Note:
A future version of this standard may require that if a <slash> follows the tilde-prefix and the pathname ends
with a <slash>, the trailing <slash> from the pathname is omitted from the replacement.

2.6.2 Parameter Expansion

The format for parameter expansion is as follows:

${expression}

where expression consists of all characters until the matching '}'. Any '}' escaped by a <backslash> or within a
quoted string, and characters in embedded arithmetic expansions, command substitutions, and variable
expansions, shall not be examined in determining the matching '}'.

The simplest form for parameter expansion is:

${parameter}

The value, if any, of parameter shall be substituted.

The parameter name or symbol can be enclosed in braces, which are optional except for positional parameters with
more than one digit or when parameter is a name and is followed by a character that could be interpreted as part of
the name.

For a parameter that is not enclosed in braces:

If the parameter is a name, the expansion shall use the longest valid name (see XBD 3.216 Name), whether or
not the variable denoted by that name exists.
Otherwise, the parameter is a single-character symbol, and behavior is unspecified if that character is neither
a digit nor one of the special parameters (see 2.5.2 Special Parameters).

In addition, a parameter expansion can be modified by using one of the following formats. In each case that a value
of word is needed (based on the state of parameter, as described below), word shall be subjected to tilde expansion,
parameter expansion, command substitution, arithmetic expansion, and quote removal. If word is not needed, it
shall not be expanded. The '}' character that delimits the following parameter expansion modifications shall be
determined as described previously in this section and in 2.2.3 Double-Quotes. If parameter is '*' or '@', the result
of the expansion is unspecified.

${parameter:-[word]}
Use Default Values. If parameter is unset or null, the expansion of word (or an empty string if word is omitted)
shall be substituted; otherwise, the value of parameter shall be substituted.
${parameter:=[word]}
Assign Default Values. If parameter is unset or null, quote removal shall be performed on the expansion of
word and the result (or an empty string if word is omitted) shall be assigned to parameter. In all cases, the final
value of parameter shall be substituted. Only variables, not positional parameters or special parameters, can
be assigned in this way.
${parameter:?[word]}
Indicate Error if Null or Unset. If parameter is unset or null, the expansion of word (or a message indicating it
is unset if word is omitted) shall be written to standard error and the shell exits with a non-zero exit status.
Otherwise, the value of parameter shall be substituted. An interactive shell need not exit.
${parameter:+[word]}
Use Alternative Value. If parameter is unset or null, null shall be substituted; otherwise, the expansion of
word (or an empty string if word is omitted) shall be substituted.

In the parameter expansions shown previously, use of the <colon> in the format shall result in a test for a parameter
that is unset or null; omission of the <colon> shall result in a test for a parameter that is only unset. If parameter is
'#' and the colon is omitted, the application shall ensure that word is specified (this is necessary to avoid ambiguity
with the string length expansion). The following table summarizes the effect of the <colon>:

parameter Set and Not parameter Set But parameter

Null Null Unset

${parameter:-word} substitute parameter substitute word substitute word

${parameter-word} substitute parameter substitute null substitute word

${parameter:=word} substitute parameter assign word assign word

${parameter=word} substitute parameter substitute null assign word

${parameter:?word} substitute parameter error, exit error, exit

${parameter?word} substitute parameter substitute null error, exit

${parameter:+word} substitute word substitute null substitute null

${parameter+word} substitute word substitute word substitute null

In all cases shown with "substitute", the expression is replaced with the value shown. In all cases shown with
"assign", parameter is assigned that value, which also replaces the expression.
${#parameter}
String Length. The shortest decimal representation of the length in characters of the value of parameter shall
be substituted. If parameter is '*' or '@', the result of the expansion is unspecified. If parameter is unset and
set -u is in effect, the expansion shall fail.

The following four varieties of parameter expansion provide for character substring processing. In each case,
pattern matching notation (see 2.14 Pattern Matching Notation), rather than regular expression notation, shall be
used to evaluate the patterns. If parameter is '#', '*', or '@', the result of the expansion is unspecified. If
parameter is unset and set -u is in effect, the expansion shall fail. Enclosing the full parameter expansion string in
double-quotes shall not cause the following four varieties of pattern characters to be quoted, whereas quoting
characters within the braces shall have this effect. In each variety, if word is omitted, the empty pattern shall be
used.

${parameter%[word]}
Remove Smallest Suffix Pattern. The word shall be expanded to produce a pattern. The parameter
expansion shall then result in parameter, with the smallest portion of the suffix matched by the pattern
deleted. If present, word shall not begin with an unquoted '%'.
${parameter%%[word]}
Remove Largest Suffix Pattern. The word shall be expanded to produce a pattern. The parameter expansion
shall then result in parameter, with the largest portion of the suffix matched by the pattern deleted.
${parameter#[word]}
Remove Smallest Prefix Pattern. The word shall be expanded to produce a pattern. The parameter
expansion shall then result in parameter, with the smallest portion of the prefix matched by the pattern
deleted. If present, word shall not begin with an unquoted '#'.
${parameter##[word]}
Remove Largest Prefix Pattern. The word shall be expanded to produce a pattern. The parameter expansion
shall then result in parameter, with the largest portion of the prefix matched by the pattern deleted.

The following sections are informative.

Examples

${parameter}

In this example, the effects of omitting braces are demonstrated.

a=1
set 2
echo ${a}b-$ab-${1}0-${10}-$10
1b--20--20

${parameter-word}

This example demonstrates the difference between unset and set to the empty string, as well as the rules for
finding the delimiting close brace.

foo=asdf
echo ${foo-bar}xyz}
asdfxyz}
foo=
echo ${foo-bar}xyz}
xyz}
unset foo
 echo ${foo-bar}xyz}
barxyz}
${parameter:-word}

In this example, ls is executed only if x is null or unset. (The $(ls) command substitution notation is explained
in 2.6.3 Command Substitution.)

${x:-$(ls)}

${parameter:=word}

unset X
echo ${X:=abc}
abc

${parameter:?word}

unset posix
echo ${posix:?}
sh: posix: parameter null or not set

${parameter:+word}

set a b c
echo ${3:+posix}
posix

${#parameter}

HOME=/usr/posix
echo ${#HOME}
10

${parameter%word}

x=file.c
echo ${x%.c}.o
file.o

${parameter%%word}

x=posix/src/std
echo ${x%%/*}
posix

${parameter#word}

x=$HOME/src/cmd
echo ${x#$HOME}
/src/cmd

${parameter##word}

x=/one/two/three
echo ${x##*/}
three
The double-quoting of patterns is different depending on where the double-quotes are placed:

"${x#*}"
The <asterisk> is a pattern character.
${x#"*"}
The literal <asterisk> is quoted and not special.

End of informative text.

2.6.3 Command Substitution

Command substitution allows the output of one or more commands to be substituted in place of the commands
themselves. Command substitution shall occur when command(s) are enclosed as follows:

$(commands)

or (backquoted version):

`commands`

The shell shall expand the command substitution by executing commands in a subshell environment (see 2.13 Shell
Execution Environment) and replacing the command substitution (the text of the commands string plus the enclosing
"$()" or backquotes) with the standard output of the command(s); if the output ends with one or more bytes that
have the encoded value of a <newline> character, they shall not be included in the replacement. Any such bytes that
occur elsewhere shall be included in the replacement; however, they might be treated as field delimiters and
eliminated during field splitting, depending on the value of IFS and quoting that is in effect. If the output contains
any null bytes, the behavior is unspecified.

Within the backquoted style of command substitution, if the command substitution is not within double-quotes,
<backslash> shall retain its literal meaning, except when followed by: '$', '`', or <backslash>. See 2.2.3 Double-
Quotes for the handling of <backslash> when the command substitution is within double-quotes. The search for the
matching backquote shall be satisfied by the first unquoted non-escaped backquote; during this search, if a non-
escaped backquote is encountered within a shell comment, a here-document, an embedded command substitution
of the $(commands) form, or a quoted string, undefined results occur. A quoted string that begins, but does not end,
within the "`...`" sequence produces undefined results.

With the $(commands) form, all characters following the open parenthesis to the matching closing parenthesis
constitute the commands string.

With both the backquoted and $(commands) forms, the commands string shall be tokenized (see 2.3 Token
Recognition) and parsed (see 2.10 Shell Grammar). It is unspecified whether the commands string is parsed and
executed incrementally as a program (as for a shell script), or is parsed as a single compound_list that is executed
after the string has been completely parsed. In addition, it is unspecified whether the terminating ')' of the
$(commands) form can result from alias substitution. With the $(commands) form any syntactically correct program
can be used for commands, except that:

If the commands string consists solely of redirections, the results are unspecified.
If the commands string is parsed as a single compound_list, before any commands are executed, alias and
unalias commands in commands have no effect during parsing (see 2.3.1 Alias Substitution). Strictly
conforming applications shall ensure that the commands string does not depend on alias changes taking
effect incrementally as would be the case if parsed and executed as a program.
The behavior is unspecified if the terminating ')' is not present in the token containing the command
substitution; that is, if the ')' is expected to result from alias substitution.
The results of command substitution shall not be processed for further tilde expansion, parameter expansion,
command substitution, or arithmetic expansion.

Command substitution can be nested. To specify nesting within the backquoted version, the application shall
precede the inner backquotes with <backslash> characters; for example:

\`commands\`

The syntax of the shell command language has an ambiguity for expansions beginning with "$((", which can
introduce an arithmetic expansion or a command substitution that starts with a subshell. Arithmetic expansion has
precedence; that is, the shell shall first determine whether it can parse the expansion as an arithmetic expansion
and shall only parse the expansion as a command substitution if it determines that it cannot parse the expansion as
an arithmetic expansion. The shell need not evaluate nested expansions when performing this determination. If it
encounters the end of input without already having determined that it cannot parse the expansion as an arithmetic
expansion, the shell shall treat the expansion as an incomplete arithmetic expansion and report a syntax error. A
conforming application shall ensure that it separates the "$(" and '(' into two tokens (that is, separate them with
white space) in a command substitution that starts with a subshell. For example, a command substitution containing
a single subshell could be written as:

$( (commands) )

2.6.4 Arithmetic Expansion

Arithmetic expansion provides a mechanism for evaluating an arithmetic expression and substituting its value. The
format for arithmetic expansion shall be as follows:

$((expression))

The expression shall be treated as if it were in double-quotes, except that a double-quote inside the expression is
not treated specially. The shell shall expand all tokens in the expression for parameter expansion, command
substitution, and quote removal.

Next, the shell shall treat this as an arithmetic expression and substitute the value of the expression. The arithmetic
expression shall be processed according to the rules given in 1.1.2.1 Arithmetic Precision and Operations, with the
following exceptions:

Only signed long integer arithmetic is required.

Only the decimal-constant, octal-constant, and hexadecimal-constant constants specified in the ISO C
standard, Section 6.4.4.1 are required to be recognized as constants.
The sizeof() operator and the prefix and postfix "++" and "--" operators are not required.
Selection, iteration, and jump statements are not supported.

All changes to variables in an arithmetic expression shall be in effect after the arithmetic expansion, as in the
parameter expansion "${x=value}".

If the shell variable x contains a value that forms a valid integer constant, optionally including a leading <plus-sign>
or <hyphen-minus>, then the arithmetic expansions "$((x))" and "$(($x))" shall return the same value.

As an extension, the shell may recognize arithmetic expressions beyond those listed. The shell may use a signed
integer type with a rank larger than the rank of signed long. The shell may use a real-floating type instead of signed
long as long as it does not affect the results in cases where there is no overflow. If the expression is invalid, or the
contents of a shell variable used in the expression are not recognized by the shell, the expansion fails and the shell
shall write a diagnostic message to standard error indicating the failure.

The following sections are informative.

Examples

A simple example using arithmetic expansion:

# repeat a command 100 times

x=100
while [ $x -gt 0 ]
do
command
x=$(($x-1))
done

End of informative text.

2.6.5 Field Splitting

After parameter expansion ( 2.6.2 Parameter Expansion), command substitution ( 2.6.3 Command Substitution), and
arithmetic expansion ( 2.6.4 Arithmetic Expansion), if the shell variable IFS (see 2.5.3 Shell Variables) is set and its
value is not empty, or if IFS is unset, the shell shall scan each field containing results of expansions and substitutions
that did not occur in double-quotes for field splitting; zero, one or multiple fields can result.

For the remainder of this section, any reference to the results of an expansion, or results of expansions, shall be
interpreted to mean the results from one or more unquoted variable or arithmetic expansions, or unquoted
command substitutions.

If the IFS variable is set and has an empty string as its value, no field splitting shall occur. However, if an input field
which contained the results of an expansion is entirely empty, it shall be removed. Note that this occurs before
quote removal; any input field that contains any quoting characters can never be empty at this point. After the
removal of any such fields from the input, the possibly modified input field list shall become the output.

Each input field shall be considered in sequence, first to last, with the results of the algorithm described in this
section causing output fields to be generated, which shall remain in the same order as the input fields from which
they originated.

Fields which contain no results from expansions shall not be affected by field splitting, and shall remain unaltered,
simply moving from the list of input fields to be next in the list of output fields.

In the remainder of this description, it is assumed that there is present in the field at least one expansion result; this
assumption will not be restated. Field splitting only ever alters those parts of the field.

For the purposes of this section, the term "IFS white space" is used to mean any of the white-space bytes (see XBD
3.413 White Space, 3.414 White-Space Byte, and 3.415 White-Space Character) <space>, <tab>, or <newline> from the
portable character set (see XBD 6.1 Portable Character Set) which are present in the value of the IFS variable, and
perhaps other white-space characters. It is implementation-defined whether other white-space characters which
appear in the value of IFS are also considered as "IFS white space". The three characters above specified as IFS white-
space bytes are always IFS white space, when they occur in the value of IFS , regardless of whether they are white-
space characters in any relevant locale. For other locale-specific white-space characters allowed by the
implementation it is unspecified whether the character is considered as IFS white space if it is white space at the
time it is assigned to the IFS variable, or if it is white space at the time field splitting occurs. (The locale might have
changed between those events.)

If the IFS variable is unset, then for the purposes of this section, but without altering the value of the variable, its
value shall be considered to contain the three single-byte characters <space>, <tab>, and <newline> from the
portable character set, all of which are IFS white-space characters.
The shell shall use the byte sequences that form the characters in the value of the IFS variable as delimiters. Each of
the characters <space>, <tab>, and <newline> which appears in the value of IFS shall be a single-byte delimiter. The
shell shall use these delimiters as field terminators to split the results of expansions, along with other adjacent
bytes, into separate fields, as described below. Note that these delimiters terminate a field; they do not, of
themselves, cause a new field to start—subsequent bytes that are not from the results of an expansion, or that do
not form IFS white-space characters are required for a new field to begin.

Note that the shell processes arbitrary bytes from the input fields; there is no requirement that those bytes form
valid characters.

If the results of the algorithm are that no fields are delimited; that is, if the input field is wholly empty or consists
entirely of IFS white space, the result shall be zero fields (rather than an empty field).

For the purposes of this section, when a field is said to be delimited, then the candidate field, as generated below
shall become an output field. When the algorithm transforms a candidate into an output field it shall be appended
to the current list of output fields.

Each field containing the results from an expansion shall be processed in order, intermixed with fields not containing
the results of expansions, processed as described above, as if by using the following algorithm, examining bytes in
the input field, from beginning to end:

Begin with an empty candidate field and the input as specified above.
When instructed to start the next iteration of the loop, this is the start of the loop. While the input (as
modified by earlier iterations of this loop) is not empty:
Consider the leading remaining byte or byte sequence of the input. No such byte sequence shall
contain data such that some bytes in the sequence resulted from an expansion, and others did not, nor
which contains bytes resulting from the results of more than one expansion. If the byte or sequence of
bytes is:
1. A byte (or sequence of bytes) in the input which did not result from an expansion:

Append this byte (or sequence) to the candidate, and remove it from the input. Start the next
iteration of the loop.

2. A byte sequence in the input which resulted from an expansion and which does not form a
character in IFS :

Append the first byte of the sequence to the candidate, and remove that byte from the input.
Start the next iteration of the loop.

3. A byte sequence in the input which resulted from an expansion and which forms an IFS white
space character:

Remove that byte sequence from the input, consider the new leading input byte sequence, and
repeat this step.

4. A byte sequence in the input which resulted from an expansion and which forms an IFS character
that is not IFS white space:

Remove that byte sequence from the input, but note it was observed.

At this point, if the candidate is not empty, or if a sequence of bytes representing an IFS character that is
not IFS white space was seen at step 4, then a field is said to have been delimited, and the candidate
shall become an output field.

Empty (clear) the candidate, and start the next iteration of the loop.
Once the input is empty, the candidate shall become an output field if and only if it is not empty.

The ordered list of output fields so produced, which might be empty, shall replace the list of input fields.
2.6.6 Pathname Expansion

After field splitting, if set -f is not in effect, each field in the resulting command line shall be expanded using the
algorithm described in 2.14 Pattern Matching Notation, qualified by the rules in 2.14.3 Patterns Used for Filename
Expansion.

2.6.7 Quote Removal

The quote character sequence <dollar-sign> single-quote and the single-character quote characters (<backslash>,
single-quote, and double-quote) that were present in the original word shall be removed unless they have
themselves been quoted. Note that the single-quote character that terminates a <dollar-sign> single-quote
sequence is itself a single-character quote character.

Note:
After quote removal the shell still remembers which characters were quoted. This is necessary for purposes
such as matching patterns in a case conditional construct (see 2.9.4.3 Case Conditional Construct and 2.14
Pattern Matching Notation).

2.7 Redirection
Redirection is used to open and close files for the current shell execution environment (see 2.13 Shell Execution
Environment) or for any command. Redirection operators can be used with numbers representing file descriptors
(see XBD 3.141 File Descriptor) as described below.

The overall format used for redirection is:

[n]redir-op word

The number n is an optional one or more digit decimal number designating the file descriptor number; the
application shall ensure it is delimited from any preceding text and immediately precedes the redirection operator
redir-op (with no intervening <blank> characters allowed). If n is quoted, the number shall not be recognized as part
of the redirection expression. For example:

echo \2>a

writes the character 2 into file a. If any part of redir-op is quoted, no redirection expression is recognized. For
example:

echo 2\>a

writes the characters 2>a to standard output. The optional number, redirection operator, and word shall not appear
in the arguments provided to the command to be executed (if any).

The shell may support an additional format used for redirection:

{location}redir-op word

where location is non-empty and indicates a location where an integer value can be stored, such as the name of a
shell variable. If this format is supported its behavior is implementation-defined.

The largest file descriptor number supported in shell redirections is implementation-defined; however, all
implementations shall support at least 0 to 9, inclusive, for use by the application.

If the redirection operator is "<<" or "<<-", the word that follows the redirection operator shall be subjected to
quote removal; it is unspecified whether any of the other expansions occur. For the other redirection operators, the
word that follows the redirection operator shall be subjected to tilde expansion, parameter expansion, command
substitution, arithmetic expansion, and quote removal. Pathname expansion shall not be performed on the word by
a non-interactive shell; an interactive shell may perform it, but if the expansion would result in more than one word
it is unspecified whether the redirection proceeds without pathname expansion being performed or the redirection
fails.

Note:
A future version of this standard may require that the redirection fails in this case.

If more than one redirection operator is specified with a command, the order of evaluation is from beginning to end.

A failure to open or create a file shall cause a redirection to fail.

2.7.1 Redirecting Input

Input redirection shall cause the file whose name results from the expansion of word to be opened for reading on
the designated file descriptor, or standard input if the file descriptor is not specified.

The general format for redirecting input is:

[n]<word

where the optional n represents the file descriptor number. If the number is omitted, the redirection shall refer to
standard input (file descriptor 0).

2.7.2 Redirecting Output

The two general formats for redirecting output are:

[n]>word
[n]>|word

where the optional n represents the file descriptor number. If the number is omitted, the redirection shall refer to
standard output (file descriptor 1).

Output redirection using the '>' format shall fail if the noclobber option is set (see the description of set -C) and the
file named by the expansion of word exists and is either a regular file or a symbolic link that resolves to a regular file;
it may also fail if the file is a symbolic link that does not resolve to an existing file. The check for existence, file
creation, and open operations shall be performed atomically as is done by the open() function as defined in System
Interfaces volume of POSIX.1-2024 when the O_CREAT and O_EXCL flags are set, except that if the file exists and is a
symbolic link, the open operation need not fail with [EEXIST] unless the symbolic link resolves to an existing regular
file. Performing these operations atomically ensures that the creation of lock files and unique (often temporary) files
is reliable, with important caveats detailed in C.2.7.2 Redirecting Output. The check for the type of the file need not be
performed atomically with the check for existence, file creation, and open operations. If not, there is a potential race
condition that may result in a misleading shell diagnostic message when redirection fails. See XRAT C.2.7.2
Redirecting Output for more details.

In all other cases (noclobber not set, redirection using '>' does not fail for the reasons stated above, or redirection
using the ">|" format), output redirection shall cause the file whose name results from the expansion of word to be
opened for output on the designated file descriptor, or standard output if none is specified. If the file does not exist,
it shall be created as an empty file; otherwise, it shall be opened as if the open() function was called with the
O_TRUNC flag set.

2.7.3 Appending Redirected Output

Appended output redirection shall cause the file whose name results from the expansion of word to be opened for
output on the designated file descriptor. The file shall be opened as if the open() function as defined in the System
Interfaces volume of POSIX.1-2024 was called with the O_APPEND flag set. If the file does not exist, it shall be
created.

The general format for appending redirected output is as follows:

[n]>>word

where the optional n represents the file descriptor number. If the number is omitted, the redirection refers to
standard output (file descriptor 1).

2.7.4 Here-Document

The redirection operators "<<" and "<<-" both allow redirection of subsequent lines read by the shell to the input
of a command. The redirected lines are known as a "here-document".

The here-document shall be treated as a single word that begins after the next NEWLINE token and continues until
there is a line containing only the delimiter and a <newline>, with no <blank> characters in between. Then the next
here-document starts, if there is one. For the purposes of locating this terminating line, the end of a command_string
operand (see sh) shall be treated as a <newline> character, and the end of the commands string in $(commands) and
`commands` may be treated as a <newline>. If the end of input is reached without finding the terminating line, the
shell should, but need not, treat this as a redirection error. The format is as follows:

[n]<<word
here-document
delimiter

where the optional n represents the file descriptor number. If the number is omitted, the here-document refers to
standard input (file descriptor 0). It is unspecified whether the file descriptor is opened as a regular file or some
other type of file. Portable applications cannot rely on the file descriptor being seekable (see XSH lseek()).

If any part of word is quoted, not counting double-quotes outside a command substitution if the here-document is
inside one, the delimiter shall be formed by performing quote removal on word, and the here-document lines shall
not be expanded. Otherwise:

The delimiter shall be the word itself.

The removal of <backslash><newline> for line continuation (see 2.2.1 Escape Character (Backslash)) shall be
performed during the search for the trailing delimiter. (As a consequence, the trailing delimiter is not
recognized immediately after a <newline> that was removed by line continuation.) It is unspecified whether
the line containing the trailing delimiter is itself subject to this line continuation.
All lines of the here-document shall be expanded, when the redirection operator is evaluated but after the
trailing delimiter for the here-document has been located, for parameter expansion, command substitution,
and arithmetic expansion. If the redirection operator is never evaluated (because the command it is part of is
not executed), the here-document shall be read without performing any expansions.
Any <backslash> characters in the input shall behave as the <backslash> inside double-quotes (see 2.2.3
Double-Quotes). However, the double-quote character ('"') shall not be treated specially within a here-
document, except when the double-quote appears within "$()", "``", or "${}".

If the redirection operator is "<<-", all leading <tab> characters shall be stripped from input lines after <backslash>
<newline> line continuation (when it applies) has been performed, and from the line containing the trailing delimiter.
Stripping of leading <tab> characters shall occur as the here-document is read from the shell input (and
consequently does not affect any <tab> characters that result from expansions).
If more than one "<<" or "<<-" operator is specified on a line, the here-document associated with the first operator
shall be supplied first by the application and shall be read first by the shell.

When a here-document is read from a terminal device and the shell is interactive, it shall write the contents of the
variable PS2, processed as described in 2.5.3 Shell Variables, to standard error before reading each line of input until
the delimiter has been recognized.

The following sections are informative.

Examples

An example of a here-document follows:

cat <<eof1; cat <<eof2

Hi,
eof1
Helene.
eof2

End of informative text.

2.7.5 Duplicating an Input File Descriptor

The redirection operator:

[n]<&word

shall duplicate one input file descriptor from another, or shall close one. If word evaluates to one or more digits, the
file descriptor denoted by n, or standard input if n is not specified, shall be made to be a copy of the file descriptor
denoted by word; if the digits in word do not represent an already open file descriptor, a redirection error shall result
(see 2.8.1 Consequences of Shell Errors); if the file descriptor denoted by word represents an open file descriptor
that is not open for input, a redirection error may result. If word evaluates to '-', file descriptor n, or standard input
if n is not specified, shall be closed. Attempts to close a file descriptor that is not open shall not constitute an error. If
word evaluates to something else, the behavior is unspecified.

2.7.6 Duplicating an Output File Descriptor

The redirection operator:

[n]>&word

shall duplicate one output file descriptor from another, or shall close one. If word evaluates to one or more digits,
the file descriptor denoted by n, or standard output if n is not specified, shall be made to be a copy of the file
descriptor denoted by word; if the digits in word do not represent an already open file descriptor, a redirection error
shall result (see 2.8.1 Consequences of Shell Errors); if the file descriptor denoted by word represents an open file
descriptor that is not open for output, a redirection error may result. If word evaluates to '-', file descriptor n, or
standard output if n is not specified, is closed. Attempts to close a file descriptor that is not open shall not constitute
an error. If word evaluates to something else, the behavior is unspecified.

2.7.7 Open File Descriptors for Reading and Writing

The redirection operator:

[n]<>word

shall cause the file whose name is the expansion of word to be opened for both reading and writing on the file
descriptor denoted by n, or standard input if n is not specified. If the file does not exist, it shall be created.

2.8 Exit Status and Errors

2.8.1 Consequences of Shell Errors

Certain errors shall cause the shell to write a diagnostic message to standard error and exit as shown in the
following table:

Error Non-Interactive Interactive Shell Shell Diagnostic

Shell Message Required

Shell language syntax error shall exit shall not exit yes

Special built-in utility error shall exit1 shall not exit no2

Other utility (not a special shall not exit shall not exit no3
built-in) error

Redirection error with shall exit shall not exit yes

special built-in utilities

Redirection error with shall not exit shall not exit yes
compound commands

Redirection error with shall not exit shall not exit yes
function execution

Redirection error with other shall not exit shall not exit yes
utilities (not special built-ins)

Variable assignment error shall exit shall not exit yes

Expansion error shall exit shall not exit yes

Command not found may exit shall not exit yes

 Unrecoverable read error shall exit4 shall exit4 yes
when reading commands

Notes:

1. The shell shall exit only if the special built-in utility is executed directly. If it is executed via the command utility,
the shell shall not exit.
2. Although special built-ins are part of the shell, a diagnostic message written by a special built-in is not
considered to be a shell diagnostic message, and can be redirected like any other utility.
3. The shell is not required to write a diagnostic message, but the utility itself shall write a diagnostic message if
required to do so.
4. If an unrecoverable read error occurs when reading commands, other than from the file operand of the dot
special built-in, the shell shall execute no further commands (including any already successfully read but not
yet executed) other than any specified in a previously defined EXIT trap action. An unrecoverable read error
while reading from the file operand of the dot special built-in shall be treated as a special built-in utility error.

An expansion error is one that occurs when the shell expansions defined in 2.6 Word Expansions are carried out (for
example, "${x!y}", because '!' is not a valid operator); an implementation may treat these as syntax errors if it is
able to detect them during tokenization, rather than during expansion.

If any of the errors shown as "shall exit" or "may exit" occur in a subshell environment, the shell shall (respectively,
may) exit from the subshell environment with a non-zero status and continue in the environment from which that
subshell environment was invoked.

In all of the cases shown in the table where an interactive shell is required not to exit and a non-interactive shell is
required to exit, an interactive shell shall not perform any further processing of the command in which the error
occurred.

2.8.2 Exit Status for Commands

Each command has an exit status that can influence the behavior of other shell commands. The exit status of
commands that are not utilities is documented in this section. The exit status of the standard utilities is documented
in their respective sections.

The exit status of a command shall be determined as follows:

If the command is not found, the exit status shall be 127.

Otherwise, if the command name is found, but it is not an executable utility, the exit status shall be 126.
Otherwise, if the command terminated due to the receipt of a signal, the shell shall assign it an exit status
greater than 128. The exit status shall identify, in an implementation-defined manner, which signal terminated
the command. Note that shell implementations are permitted to assign an exit status greater than 255 if a
command terminates due to a signal.
Otherwise, the exit status shall be the value obtained by the equivalent of the WEXITSTATUS macro applied to
the status obtained by the wait() function (as defined in the System Interfaces volume of POSIX.1-2024). Note
that for C programs, this value is equal to the result of performing a modulo 256 operation on the value
passed to _Exit(), _exit(), or exit() or returned from main().

2.9 Shell Commands

This section describes the basic structure of shell commands. The following command descriptions each describe a
format of the command that is only used to aid the reader in recognizing the command type, and does not formally
represent the syntax. In particular, the representations include spacing between tokens in some places where
<blank>s would not be necessary (when one of the tokens is an operator). Each description discusses the semantics
of the command; for a formal definition of the command language, consult 2.10 Shell Grammar.
A command is one of the following:

Simple command (see 2.9.1 Simple Commands)

Pipeline (see 2.9.2 Pipelines)
List compound-list (see 2.9.3 Lists)
Compound command (see 2.9.4 Compound Commands)
Function definition (see 2.9.5 Function Definition Command)

Unless otherwise stated, the exit status of a command shall be that of the last simple command executed by the
command. There shall be no limit on the size of any shell command other than that imposed by the underlying
system (memory constraints, {ARG_MAX}, and so on).

2.9.1 Simple Commands

A "simple command" is a sequence of optional variable assignments and redirections, in any sequence, optionally
followed by words and redirections.

2.9.1.1 Order of Processing

When a given simple command is required to be executed (that is, when any conditional construct such as an AND-
OR list or a case statement has not bypassed the simple command), the following expansions, assignments, and
redirections shall all be performed from the beginning of the command text to the end:

1. The words that are recognized as variable assignments or redirections according to 2.10.2 Shell Grammar
Rules are saved for processing in steps 3 and 4.
2. The first word (if any) that is not a variable assignment or redirection shall be expanded. If any fields remain
following its expansion, the first field shall be considered the command name. If no fields remain, the next
word (if any) shall be expanded, and so on, until a command name is found or no words remain. If there is a
command name and it is recognized as a declaration utility, then any remaining words after the word that
expanded to produce the command name, that would be recognized as a variable assignment in isolation,
shall be expanded as a variable assignment (tilde expansion after the first <equals-sign> and after any
unquoted <colon>, parameter expansion, command substitution, arithmetic expansion, and quote removal,
but no field splitting or pathname expansion); while remaining words that would not be a variable assignment
in isolation shall be subject to regular expansion (tilde expansion for only a leading <tilde>, parameter
expansion, command substitution, arithmetic expansion, field splitting, pathname expansion, and quote
removal). For all other command names, words after the word that produced the command name shall be
subject only to regular expansion. All fields resulting from the expansion of the word that produced the
command name and the subsequent words, except for the field containing the command name, shall be the
arguments for the command.
3. Redirections shall be performed as described in 2.7 Redirection.
4. Each variable assignment shall be expanded for tilde expansion, parameter expansion, command
substitution, arithmetic expansion, and quote removal prior to assigning the value.

In the preceding list, the order of steps 3 and 4 may be reversed if no command name results from step 2 or if the
command name matches the name of a special built-in utility; see 2.15 Special Built-In Utilities.

When determining whether a command name is a declaration utility, an implementation may use only lexical
analysis. It is unspecified whether assignment context will be used if the command name would only become
recognized as a declaration utility after word expansions.

2.9.1.2 Variable Assignments

Variable assignments shall be performed as follows:

 If no command name results, variable assignments shall affect the current execution environment.
If the command name is not a special built-in utility or function, the variable assignments shall be exported
for the execution environment of the command and shall not affect the current execution environment except
as a side-effect of the expansions performed in step 4. In this case it is unspecified:
Whether or not the assignments are visible for subsequent expansions in step 4
Whether variable assignments made as side-effects of these expansions are visible for subsequent
expansions in step 4, or in the current shell execution environment, or both
If the command name is a standard utility implemented as a function (see XBD 4.25 Utility), the effect of
variable assignments shall be as if the utility was not implemented as a function.
If the command name is a special built-in utility, variable assignments shall affect the current execution
environment before the utility is executed and remain in effect when the command completes; if an assigned
variable is further modified by the utility, the modifications made by the utility shall persist. Unless the set -a
option is on (see set), it is unspecified:
Whether or not the variables gain the export attribute during the execution of the special built-in utility
Whether or not export attributes gained as a result of the variable assignments persist after the
completion of the special built-in utility
If the command name is a function that is not a standard utility implemented as a function, variable
assignments shall affect the current execution environment during the execution of the function. It is
unspecified:
Whether or not the variable assignments persist after the completion of the function
Whether or not the variables gain the export attribute during the execution of the function
Whether or not export attributes gained as a result of the variable assignments persist after the
completion of the function (if variable assignments persist after the completion of the function)

If any of the variable assignments attempt to assign a value to a variable for which the readonly attribute is set in the
current shell environment (regardless of whether the assignment is made in that environment), a variable
assignment error shall occur. See 2.8.1 Consequences of Shell Errors for the consequences of these errors.

2.9.1.3 Commands with no Command Name

If a simple command has no command name after word expansion (see 2.9.1.1 Order of Processing), any
redirections shall be performed in a subshell environment; it is unspecified whether this subshell environment is the
same one as that used for a command substitution within the command. (To affect the current execution
environment, see the exec special built-in.) If any of the redirections performed in the current shell execution
environment fail, the command shall immediately fail with an exit status greater than zero, and the shell shall write
an error message indicating the failure. See 2.8.1 Consequences of Shell Errors for the consequences of these
failures on interactive and non-interactive shells.

Additionally, if there is no command name but the command contains a command substitution, the command shall
complete with the exit status of the command substitution whose exit status was the last to be obtained. Otherwise,
the command shall complete with a zero exit status.

2.9.1.4 Command Search and Execution

If a simple command has a command name and an optional list of arguments after word expansion (see 2.9.1.1
Order of Processing), the following actions shall be performed:

1. If the command name does not contain any <slash> characters, the first successful step in the following
sequence shall occur:
a. If the command name matches the name of a special built-in utility, that special built-in utility shall be
invoked.
b. If the command name matches the name of a utility listed in the following table, the results are
unspecified.
 alloc compcall compvalues history print
autoload compctl declare hist pushd
bind compdescribe dirs integer readarray
bindkey compfiles disable let repeat
builtin compgen disown local savehistory
bye compgroups dosh login source
caller complete echotc logout shopt
cap compound echoti map stop
chdir compquote enum mapfile suspend
clone comptags float nameref typeset
comparguments comptry help popd whence

c. If the command name matches the name of a function known to this shell, the function shall be
invoked as described in 2.9.5 Function Definition Command. If the implementation has provided a
standard utility in the form of a function, and that function definition still exists (i.e. has not been
removed using unset -f or replaced via another function definition with the same name), it shall not be
recognized at this point. It shall be invoked in conjunction with the path search in step 1e.
d. If the command name matches the name of an intrinsic utility (see 1.7 Intrinsic Utilities), that utility shall
be invoked.
e. Otherwise, the command shall be searched for using the PATH environment variable as described in
XBD 8. Environment Variables:
i. If the search is successful:
a. If the system has implemented the utility as a built-in or as a shell function, and the built-in
or function is associated with the directory that was most recently tested during the
successful PATH search, that built-in or function shall be invoked.
b. Otherwise, the shell shall execute a non-built-in utility as described in 2.9.1.6 Non-built-in
Utility Execution.

Once a utility has been searched for and found (either as a result of this specific search or as part
of an unspecified shell start-up activity), an implementation may remember its location and need
not search for the utility again unless the PATH variable has been the subject of an assignment. If
the remembered location fails for a subsequent invocation, the shell shall repeat the search to
find the new location for the utility, if any.

ii. If the search is unsuccessful, the command shall fail with an exit status of 127 and the shell shall
write an error message.
2. If the command name contains at least one <slash>, the shell shall execute a non-built-in utility as described
in 2.9.1.6 Non-built-in Utility Execution.

2.9.1.5 Standard File Descriptors

If the utility would be executed with file descriptor 0, 1, or 2 closed, implementations may execute the utility with the
file descriptor open to an unspecified file. If a standard utility or a conforming application is executed with file
descriptor 0 not open for reading or with file descriptor 1 or 2 not open for writing, the environment in which the
utility or application is executed shall be deemed non-conforming, and consequently the utility or application might
not behave as described in this standard.

2.9.1.6 Non-built-in Utility Execution

When the shell executes a non-built-in utility, if the execution is not being made via the exec special built-in utility,
the shell shall execute the utility in a separate utility environment (see 2.13 Shell Execution Environment).

If the execution is being made via the exec special built-in utility, the shell shall not create a separate utility
environment for this execution; the new process image shall replace the current shell execution environment. If the
current shell environment is a subshell environment, the new process image shall replace the subshell environment
and the shell shall continue in the environment from which that subshell environment was invoked.

In either case, execution of the utility in the specified environment shall be performed as follows:

1. If the command name does not contain any <slash> characters, the command name shall be searched for
using the PATH environment variable as described in XBD 8. Environment Variables:
a. If the search is successful, the shell shall execute the utility with actions equivalent to calling the execl()
function as defined in the System Interfaces volume of POSIX.1-2024 with the path argument set to the
pathname resulting from the search, arg0 set to the command name, and the remaining execl()
arguments set to the command arguments (if any) and the null terminator.

If the execl() function fails due to an error equivalent to the [ENOEXEC] error defined in the System
Interfaces volume of POSIX.1-2024, the shell shall execute a command equivalent to having a shell
invoked with the pathname resulting from the search as its first operand, with any remaining
arguments passed to the new shell, except that the value of "$0" in the new shell may be set to the
command name. The shell may apply a heuristic check to determine if the file to be executed could be a
script and may bypass this command execution if it determines that the file cannot be a script. In this
case, it shall write an error message, and the command shall fail with an exit status of 126.

Note:
A common heuristic for rejecting files that cannot be a script is locating a NUL byte prior to a
<newline> byte within a fixed-length prefix of the file. Since sh is required to accept input files
with unlimited line lengths, the heuristic check cannot be based on line length.

It is unspecified whether environment variables that were passed to the shell when it was invoked, but
were not used to initialize shell variables (see 2.5.3 Shell Variables) because they had invalid names, are
included in the environment passed to execl() and (if execl() fails as described above) to the new shell.

b. If the search is unsuccessful, the command shall fail with an exit status of 127 and the shell shall write
an error message.
2. If the command name contains at least one <slash>:
a. If the named utility exists, the shell shall execute the utility with actions equivalent to calling the execl()
function defined in the System Interfaces volume of POSIX.1-2024 with the path and arg0 arguments
set to the command name, and the remaining execl() arguments set to the command arguments (if any)
and the null terminator.

If the execl() function fails due to an error equivalent to the [ENOEXEC] error, the shell shall execute a
command equivalent to having a shell invoked with the command name as its first operand, with any
remaining arguments passed to the new shell. The shell may apply a heuristic check to determine if the
file to be executed could be a script and may bypass this command execution if it determines that the
file cannot be a script. In this case, it shall write an error message, and the command shall fail with an
exit status of 126.

Note:
A common heuristic for rejecting files that cannot be a script is locating a NUL byte prior to a
<newline> byte within a fixed-length prefix of the file. Since sh is required to accept input files
with unlimited line lengths, the heuristic check cannot be based on line length.

It is unspecified whether environment variables that were passed to the shell when it was invoked, but
were not used to initialize shell variables (see 2.5.3 Shell Variables) because they had invalid names, are
included in the environment passed to execl() and (if execl() fails as described above) to the new shell.
 b. If the named utility does not exist, the command shall fail with an exit status of 127 and the shell shall
write an error message.

2.9.2 Pipelines

A pipeline is a sequence of one or more commands separated by the control operator '|'. For each command but
the last, the shell shall connect the standard output of the command to the standard input of the next command as
if by creating a pipe and passing the write end of the pipe as the standard output of the command and the read end
of the pipe as the standard input of the next command.

The format for a pipeline is:

[!] command1 [ | command2 ...]

If the pipeline begins with the reserved word ! and command1 is a subshell command, the application shall ensure
that the ( operator at the beginning of command1 is separated from the ! by one or more <blank> characters. The
behavior of the reserved word ! immediately followed by the ( operator is unspecified.

The standard output of command1 shall be connected to the standard input of command2. The standard input,
standard output, or both of a command shall be considered to be assigned by the pipeline before any redirection
specified by redirection operators that are part of the command (see 2.7 Redirection).

If the pipeline is not in the background (see 2.9.3.1 Asynchronous AND-OR Lists and 2.11 Job Control), the shell shall
wait for the last command specified in the pipeline to complete, and may also wait for all commands to complete.

Exit Status

The exit status of a pipeline shall depend on whether or not the pipefail option (see set) is enabled and whether or
not the pipeline begins with the ! reserved word, as described in the following table. The pipefail option determines
which command in the pipeline the exit status is derived from; the ! reserved word causes the exit status to be the
logical NOT of the exit status of that command. The shell shall use the pipefail setting at the time it begins execution
of the pipeline, not the setting at the time it sets the exit status of the pipeline. (For example, in command1 | set -
o pipefail the exit status of command1 has no effect on the exit status of the pipeline, even if the shell executes
set -o pipefail in the current shell environment.)

pipefail Begins Exit Status

Enabled with !

no no The exit status of the last (rightmost) command specified in the

pipeline.

no yes Zero, if the last (rightmost) command in the pipeline returned a

non-zero exit status; otherwise, 1.

yes no Zero, if all commands in the pipeline returned an exit status of

0; otherwise, the exit status of the last (rightmost) command
specified in the pipeline that returned a non-zero exit status.
 yes yes Zero, if any command in the pipeline returned a non-zero exit
status; otherwise, 1.

2.9.3 Lists

An AND-OR list is a sequence of one or more pipelines separated by the operators "&&" and "||".

A list is a sequence of one or more AND-OR lists separated by the operators ';' and '&'.

The operators "&&" and "||" shall have equal precedence and shall be evaluated with left associativity. For
example, both of the following commands write solely bar to standard output:

false && echo foo || echo bar

true || echo foo && echo bar

A ';' separator or a ';' or <newline> terminator shall cause the preceding AND-OR list to be executed sequentially;
an '&' separator or terminator shall cause asynchronous execution of the preceding AND-OR list.

The term "compound-list" is derived from the grammar in 2.10 Shell Grammar; it is equivalent to a sequence of lists,
separated by <newline> characters, that can be preceded or followed by an arbitrary number of <newline>
characters.

The following sections are informative.

Examples

The following is an example that illustrates <newline> characters in compound-lists:

while
# a couple of <newline>s

# a list
date && who || ls; cat file
# a couple of <newline>s

# another list
wc file > output & true

do
# 2 lists
ls
cat file
done

End of informative text.

2.9.3.1 Asynchronous AND-OR Lists

If an AND-OR list is terminated by the control operator <ampersand> ('&'), the shell shall execute the AND-OR list
asynchronously in a subshell environment. This subshell shall execute in the background; that is, the shell shall not
wait for the subshell to terminate before executing the next command (if any); if there are no further commands to
execute, the shell shall not wait for the subshell to terminate before exiting.

If job control is enabled (see set, -m), the AND-OR list shall become a job-control background job and a job number
shall be assigned to it. If job control is disabled, the AND-OR list may become a non-job-control background job, in
which case a job number shall be assigned to it; if no job number is assigned it shall become a background
command but not a background job.

A job-control background job can be controlled as described in 2.11 Job Control.

The process ID associated with the asynchronous AND-OR list shall become known in the current shell execution
environment; see 2.13 Shell Execution Environment. This process ID shall remain known until any one of the
following occurs (and, unless otherwise specified, may continue to remain known after it occurs).

The process terminates and the application waits for the process ID or the corresponding job ID (see wait).
If the asynchronous AND-OR list did not become a background job: another asynchronous AND-OR list is
invoked before "$!" (corresponding to the previous asynchronous AND-OR list) is expanded in the current
shell execution environment.
If the asynchronous AND-OR list became a background job: the jobs utility reports the termination status of
that job.
If the shell is interactive and the asynchronous AND-OR list became a background job: a message indicating
completion of the corresponding job is written to standard error. If set -b is enabled, it is unspecified whether
the process ID is removed from the list of known process IDs when the message is written or immediately
prior to when the shell writes the next prompt for input.

The implementation need not retain more than the {CHILD_MAX} most recent entries in its list of known process IDs
in the current shell execution environment.

If, and only if, job control is disabled, the standard input for the subshell in which an asynchronous AND-OR list is
executed shall initially be assigned to an open file description that behaves as if /dev/null had been opened for
reading only. This initial assignment shall be overridden by any explicit redirection of standard input within the AND-
OR list.

If the shell is interactive and the asynchronous AND-OR list became a background job, the job number and the
process ID associated with the job shall be written to standard error using the format:

"[%d] %d\n", <job-number>, <process-id>

If the shell is interactive and the asynchronous AND-OR list did not become a background job, the process ID
associated with the asynchronous AND-OR list shall be written to standard error in an unspecified format.

Exit Status

The exit status of an asynchronous AND-OR list shall be zero.

The exit status of the subshell in which the AND-OR list is asynchronously executed can be obtained using the wait
utility.

2.9.3.2 Sequential AND-OR Lists

AND-OR lists that are separated by a <semicolon> (';') shall be executed sequentially. The format for executing
AND-OR lists sequentially shall be:
aolist1 [; aolist2] ...

Each AND-OR list shall be expanded and executed in the order specified.

If job control is enabled, the AND-OR lists shall form all or part of a foreground job that can be controlled as
described in 2.11 Job Control.

Exit Status

The exit status of a sequential AND-OR list shall be the exit status of the last pipeline in the AND-OR list that is
executed.

2.9.3.3 AND Lists

The control operator "&&" denotes an AND list. The format shall be:

command1 [ && command2] ...

First command1 shall be executed. If its exit status is zero, command2 shall be executed, and so on, until a command
has a non-zero exit status or there are no more commands left to execute. The commands are expanded only if they
are executed.

Exit Status

The exit status of an AND list shall be the exit status of the last command that is executed in the list.

2.9.3.4 OR Lists

The control operator "||" denotes an OR List. The format shall be:

command1 [ || command2] ...

First, command1 shall be executed. If its exit status is non-zero, command2 shall be executed, and so on, until a
command has a zero exit status or there are no more commands left to execute.

Exit Status

The exit status of an OR list shall be the exit status of the last command that is executed in the list.

2.9.4 Compound Commands

The shell has several programming constructs that are "compound commands", which provide control flow for
commands. Each of these compound commands has a reserved word or control operator at the beginning, and a
corresponding terminator reserved word or operator at the end. In addition, each can be followed by redirections on
the same line as the terminator. Each redirection shall apply to all the commands within the compound command
that do not explicitly override that redirection.

In the descriptions below, the exit status of some compound commands is stated in terms of the exit status of a
compound-list. The exit status of a compound-list shall be the value that the special parameter '?' (see 2.5.2 Special
Parameters) would have immediately after execution of the compound-list.
2.9.4.1 Grouping Commands

The format for grouping commands is as follows:

( compound-list )
Execute compound-list in a subshell environment; see 2.13 Shell Execution Environment. Variable assignments
and built-in commands that affect the environment shall not remain in effect after the list finishes.

If a character sequence beginning with "((" would be parsed by the shell as an arithmetic expansion if
preceded by a '$', shells which implement an extension whereby "((expression))" is evaluated as an
arithmetic expression may treat the "((" as introducing as an arithmetic evaluation instead of a grouping
command. A conforming application shall ensure that it separates the two leading '(' characters with white
space to prevent the shell from performing an arithmetic evaluation.

{ compound-list ; }
Execute compound-list in the current process environment. The semicolon shown here is an example of a
control operator delimiting the } reserved word. Other delimiters are possible, as shown in 2.10 Shell
Grammar; a <newline> is frequently used.

Exit Status

The exit status of a grouping command shall be the exit status of compound-list.

2.9.4.2 The for Loop

The for loop shall execute a sequence of commands for each member in a list of items. The for loop requires that the
reserved words do and done be used to delimit the sequence of commands.

The format for the for loop is as follows:

for name [ in [word ... ]]

do
compound-list
done

First, the list of words following in shall be expanded to generate a list of items. Then, the variable name shall be set
to each item, in turn, and the compound-list executed each time. If no items result from the expansion, the
compound-list shall not be executed. Omitting:

in word ...

shall be equivalent to:

in "$@"

Exit Status

If there is at least one item in the list of items, the exit status of a for command shall be the exit status of the last
compound-list executed. If there are no items, the exit status shall be zero.

2.9.4.3 Case Conditional Construct

The conditional construct case shall execute the compound-list corresponding to the first pattern (see 2.14 Pattern
Matching Notation), if any are present, that is matched by the string resulting from the tilde expansion, parameter
expansion, command substitution, arithmetic expansion, and quote removal of the given word. The reserved word
in shall denote the beginning of the patterns to be matched. Multiple patterns with the same compound-list shall be
delimited by the '|' symbol. The control operator ')' terminates a list of patterns corresponding to a given action.
The terminated pattern list and the following compound-list is called a case statement clause. Each case statement
clause, with the possible exception of the last, shall be terminated with either ";;" or ";&". The case construct
terminates with the reserved word esac (case reversed).

The format for the case construct is as follows:

case word in
[[(] pattern[ | pattern] ... ) compound-list terminator] ...
[[(] pattern[ | pattern] ... ) compound-list]
esac

Where terminator is either ";;" or ";&" and is optional for the last compound-list.

In order from the beginning to the end of the case statement, each pattern that labels a compound-list shall be
subjected to tilde expansion, parameter expansion, command substitution, and arithmetic expansion, and the result
of these expansions shall be compared against the expansion of word, according to the rules described in 2.14
Pattern Matching Notation (which also describes the effect of quoting parts of the pattern). After the first match, no
more patterns in the case statement shall be expanded, and the compound-list of the matching clause shall be
executed. If the case statement clause is terminated by ";;", no further clauses shall be examined. If the case
statement clause is terminated by ";&", then the compound-list (if any) of each subsequent clause shall be executed,
in order, until either a clause terminated by ";;" is reached and its compound-list (if any) executed or there are no
further clauses in the case statement. The order of expansion and comparison of multiple patterns that label a
compound-list statement is unspecified.

Exit Status

The exit status of case shall be zero if no patterns are matched. Otherwise, the exit status shall be the exit status of
the compound-list of the last clause to be executed.

2.9.4.4 The if Conditional Construct

The if command shall execute a compound-list and use its exit status to determine whether to execute another
compound-list.

The format for the if construct is as follows:

if compound-list
then
compound-list
[elif compound-list
then
compound-list] ...
[else
compound-list]
fi

The if compound-list shall be executed; if its exit status is zero, the then compound-list shall be executed and the
command shall complete. Otherwise, each elif compound-list shall be executed, in turn, and if its exit status is zero,
the then compound-list shall be executed and the command shall complete. Otherwise, the else compound-list shall
be executed.

Exit Status

The exit status of the if command shall be the exit status of the then or else compound-list that was executed, or
zero, if none was executed.

Note:
Although the exit status of the if or elif compound-list is ignored when determining the exit status of the if
command, it is available through the special parameter '?' (see 2.5.2 Special Parameters) during execution of
the next then, elif, or else compound-list (if any is executed) in the normal way.

2.9.4.5 The while Loop

The while loop shall continuously execute one compound-list as long as another compound-list has a zero exit status.

The format of the while loop is as follows:

while compound-list-1
do
compound-list-2
done

The compound-list-1 shall be executed, and if it has a non-zero exit status, the while command shall complete.
Otherwise, the compound-list-2 shall be executed, and the process shall repeat.

Exit Status

The exit status of the while loop shall be the exit status of the last compound-list-2 executed, or zero if none was
executed.

Note:
Since the exit status of compound-list-1 is ignored when determining the exit status of the while command, it
is not possible to obtain the status of the command that caused the loop to exit, other than via the special
parameter '?' (see 2.5.2 Special Parameters) during execution of compound-list-1, for example:

while some_command; st=$?; false; do ...

The exit status of compound-list-1 is available through the special parameter '?' during execution of
compound-list-2, but is known to be zero at that point anyway.

2.9.4.6 The until Loop

The until loop shall continuously execute one compound-list as long as another compound-list has a non-zero exit
status.

The format of the until loop is as follows:

until compound-list-1
do
 compound-list-2
done

The compound-list-1 shall be executed, and if it has a zero exit status, the until command completes. Otherwise, the
compound-list-2 shall be executed, and the process repeats.

Exit Status

The exit status of the until loop shall be the exit status of the last compound-list-2 executed, or zero if none was
executed.

Note:
Although the exit status of compound-list-1 is ignored when determining the exit status of the until command,
it is available through the special parameter '?' (see 2.5.2 Special Parameters) during execution of compound-
list-2 in the normal way.

2.9.5 Function Definition Command

A function is a user-defined name that is used as a simple command to call a compound command with new
positional parameters. A function is defined with a "function definition command".

The format of a function definition command is as follows:

fname ( ) compound-command [io-redirect ...]

The function is named fname; the application shall ensure that it is a name (see XBD 3.216 Name) and that it is not
the name of a special built-in utility. An implementation may allow other characters in a function name as an
extension. The implementation shall maintain separate name spaces for functions and variables.

The argument compound-command represents a compound command, as described in 2.9.4 Compound Commands.

When the function is declared, none of the expansions in 2.6 Word Expansions shall be performed on the text in
compound-command or io-redirect; all expansions shall be performed as normal each time the function is called.
Similarly, the optional io-redirect redirections and any variable assignments within compound-command shall be
performed during the execution of the function itself, not the function definition. See 2.8.1 Consequences of Shell
Errors for the consequences of failures of these operations on interactive and non-interactive shells.

When a function is executed, it shall have the syntax-error properties described for special built-in utilities in the first
item in the enumerated list at the beginning of 2.15 Special Built-In Utilities.

The compound-command shall be executed whenever the function name is specified as the name of a simple
command (see 2.9.1.4 Command Search and Execution). The operands to the command temporarily shall become
the positional parameters during the execution of the compound-command; the special parameter '#' also shall be
changed to reflect the number of operands. The special parameter 0 shall be unchanged. When the function
completes, the values of the positional parameters and the special parameter '#' shall be restored to the values
they had before the function was executed. If the special built-in return (see return) is executed in the compound-
command, the function completes and execution shall resume with the next command after the function call.

Exit Status

The exit status of a function definition shall be zero if the function was declared successfully; otherwise, it shall be
greater than zero. The exit status of a function invocation shall be the exit status of the last command executed by
the function.
2.10 Shell Grammar

The following grammar defines the Shell Command Language. This formal syntax shall take precedence over the
preceding text syntax description.

2.10.1 Shell Grammar Lexical Conventions

The input language to the shell shall be first recognized at the character level. The resulting tokens shall be classified
by their immediate context according to the following rules (applied in order). These rules shall be used to
determine what a "token" is that is subject to parsing at the token level. The rules for token recognition in 2.3 Token
Recognition shall apply.

1. If the token is an operator, the token identifier for that operator shall result.
2. If the string consists solely of digits and the delimiter character is one of '<' or '>', the token identifier
IO_NUMBER shall result.
3. If the string contains at least three characters, begins with a <left-curly-bracket> ('{') and ends with a <right-
curly-bracket> ('}'), and the delimiter character is one of '<' or '>', the token identifier IO_LOCATION may
result; if the result is not IO_LOCATION, the token identifier TOKEN shall result.
4. Otherwise, the token identifier TOKEN shall result.

Further distinction on TOKEN is context-dependent. It may be that the same TOKEN yields WORD, a NAME, an
ASSIGNMENT_WORD, or one of the reserved words below, dependent upon the context. Some of the productions in
the grammar below are annotated with a rule number from the following list. When a TOKEN is seen where one of
those annotated productions could be used to reduce the symbol, the applicable rule shall be applied to convert the
token identifier type of the TOKEN to:

The token identifier of the recognized reserved word, for rule 1

A token identifier acceptable at that point in the grammar, for all other rules

The reduction shall then proceed based upon the token identifier type yielded by the rule applied. When more than
one rule applies, the highest numbered rule shall apply (which in turn may refer to another rule). (Note that except
in rule 7, the presence of an '=' in the token has no effect.)

The WORD tokens shall have the word expansion rules applied to them immediately before the associated
command is executed, not at the time the command is parsed.

2.10.2 Shell Grammar Rules

1. [Command Name]

When the TOKEN is exactly a reserved word, the token identifier for that reserved word shall result.
Otherwise, the token WORD shall be returned. Also, if the parser is in any state where only a reserved word
could be the next correct token, proceed as above.

Note:
Because at this point quoting characters (<backslash>, single-quote, <quotation-mark>, and the <dollar-
sign> single-quote sequence) are retained in the token, quoted strings cannot be recognized as
reserved words. This rule also implies that reserved words are not recognized except in certain
positions in the input, such as after a <newline> or <semicolon>; the grammar presumes that if the
reserved word is intended, it is properly delimited by the user, and does not attempt to reflect that
requirement directly. Also note that line joining is done before tokenization, as described in 2.2.1
Escape Character (Backslash), so escaped <newline> characters are already removed at this point.

Rule 1 is not directly referenced in the grammar, but is referred to by other rules, or applies globally.
2. [Redirection to or from filename]

The expansions specified in 2.7 Redirection shall occur. As specified there, exactly one field can result (or the
result is unspecified), and there are additional requirements on pathname expansion.

3. [Redirection from here-document]

Quote removal shall be applied to the word to determine the delimiter that is used to find the end of the here-
document that begins after the next <newline>.

4. [Case statement termination]

When the TOKEN is exactly the reserved word esac, the token identifier for esac shall result. Otherwise, the
token WORD shall be returned.

5. [NAME in for]

When the TOKEN meets the requirements for a name (see XBD 3.216 Name), the token identifier NAME shall
result. Otherwise, the token WORD shall be returned.

6. [Third word of for and case]

a. [case only]

When the TOKEN is exactly the reserved word in, the token identifier for in shall result. Otherwise, the
token WORD shall be returned.

b. [for only]

When the TOKEN is exactly the reserved word in or do, the token identifier for in or do shall result,
respectively. Otherwise, the token WORD shall be returned.

(For a. and b.: As indicated in the grammar, a linebreak precedes the tokens in and do. If <newline> characters
are present at the indicated location, it is the token after them that is treated in this fashion.)

7. [Assignment preceding command name]

a. [When the first word]

If the TOKEN is exactly a reserved word, the token identifier for that reserved word shall result.
Otherwise, 7b shall be applied.

b. [Not the first word]

If the TOKEN contains an unquoted (as determined while applying rule 4 from 2.3 Token Recognition)
<equals-sign> character that is not part of an embedded parameter expansion, command substitution,
or arithmetic expansion construct (as determined while applying rule 5 from 2.3 Token Recognition):

If the TOKEN begins with '=', then the token WORD shall be returned.
If all the characters in the TOKEN preceding the first such <equals-sign> form a valid name (see
XBD 3.216 Name), the token ASSIGNMENT_WORD shall be returned.
Otherwise, it is implementation-defined whether the token WORD or ASSIGNMENT_WORD is
returned, or the TOKEN is processed in some other way.

Otherwise, the token WORD shall be returned.

If a returned ASSIGNMENT_WORD token begins with a valid name, assignment of the value after the first
<equals-sign> to the name shall occur as specified in 2.9.1 Simple Commands. If a returned
ASSIGNMENT_WORD token does not begin with a valid name, the way in which the token is processed is
unspecified.
 8. [NAME in function]

When the TOKEN is exactly a reserved word, the token identifier for that reserved word shall result.
Otherwise, when the TOKEN meets the requirements for a name, the token identifier NAME shall result.
Otherwise, rule 7 applies.

9. [Body of function]

Word expansion and assignment shall never occur, even when required by the rules above, when this rule is
being parsed. Each TOKEN that might either be expanded or have assignment applied to it shall instead be
returned as a single WORD consisting only of characters that are exactly the token described in 2.3 Token
Recognition .

/* -------------------------------------------------------
The grammar symbols
------------------------------------------------------- */
%token WORD
%token ASSIGNMENT_WORD
%token NAME
%token NEWLINE
%token IO_NUMBER
%token IO_LOCATION

/* The following are the operators (see XBD 3.243 Operator) containing more than one
character. */

%token AND_IF OR_IF DSEMI SEMI_AND

/* '&&' '||' ';;' ';&' */

%token DLESS DGREAT LESSAND GREATAND LESSGREAT DLESSDASH

/* '<<' '>>' '<&' '>&' '<>' '<<-' */

%token CLOBBER
/* '>|' */

/* The following are the reserved words. */

%token If Then Else Elif Fi Do Done

/* 'if' 'then' 'else' 'elif' 'fi' 'do' 'done' */

%token Case Esac While Until For

/* 'case' 'esac' 'while' 'until' 'for' */
/* These are reserved words, not operator tokens, and are
recognized when reserved words are recognized. */

%token Lbrace Rbrace Bang

/* '{' '}' '!' */

%token In
/* 'in' */

/* -------------------------------------------------------
The Grammar
------------------------------------------------------- */
%start program
%%
program : linebreak complete_commands linebreak
| linebreak
;
complete_commands: complete_commands newline_list complete_command
| complete_command
;
complete_command : list separator_op
| list
;
list : list separator_op and_or
| and_or
;
and_or : pipeline
| and_or AND_IF linebreak pipeline
| and_or OR_IF linebreak pipeline
;
pipeline : pipe_sequence
| Bang pipe_sequence
;
pipe_sequence : command
| pipe_sequence '|' linebreak command
;
command : simple_command
| compound_command
| compound_command redirect_list
| function_definition
;
compound_command : brace_group
| subshell
| for_clause
 | case_clause
| if_clause
| while_clause
| until_clause
;
subshell : '(' compound_list ')'
;
compound_list : linebreak term
| linebreak term separator
;
term : term separator and_or
| and_or
;
for_clause : For name do_group
| For name sequential_sep do_group
| For name linebreak in sequential_sep do_group
| For name linebreak in wordlist sequential_sep do_group
;
name : NAME /* Apply rule 5 */
;
in : In /* Apply rule 6 */
;
wordlist : wordlist WORD
| WORD
;
case_clause : Case WORD linebreak in linebreak case_list Esac
| Case WORD linebreak in linebreak case_list_ns Esac
| Case WORD linebreak in linebreak Esac
;
case_list_ns : case_list case_item_ns
| case_item_ns
;
case_list : case_list case_item
| case_item
;
case_item_ns : pattern_list ')' linebreak
| pattern_list ')' compound_list
;
case_item : pattern_list ')' linebreak DSEMI linebreak
| pattern_list ')' compound_list DSEMI linebreak
| pattern_list ')' linebreak SEMI_AND linebreak
| pattern_list ')' compound_list SEMI_AND linebreak
;
pattern_list : WORD /* Apply rule 4 */
| '(' WORD /* Do not apply rule 4 */
| pattern_list '|' WORD /* Do not apply rule 4 */
;
if_clause : If compound_list Then compound_list else_part Fi
| If compound_list Then compound_list Fi
;
else_part : Elif compound_list Then compound_list
 | Elif compound_list Then compound_list else_part
| Else compound_list
;
while_clause : While compound_list do_group
;
until_clause : Until compound_list do_group
;
function_definition : fname '(' ')' linebreak function_body
;
function_body : compound_command /* Apply rule 9 */
| compound_command redirect_list /* Apply rule 9 */
;
fname : NAME /* Apply rule 8 */
;
brace_group : Lbrace compound_list Rbrace
;
do_group : Do compound_list Done /* Apply rule 6 */
;
simple_command : cmd_prefix cmd_word cmd_suffix
| cmd_prefix cmd_word
| cmd_prefix
| cmd_name cmd_suffix
| cmd_name
;
cmd_name : WORD /* Apply rule 7a */
;
cmd_word : WORD /* Apply rule 7b */
;
cmd_prefix : io_redirect
| cmd_prefix io_redirect
| ASSIGNMENT_WORD
| cmd_prefix ASSIGNMENT_WORD
;
cmd_suffix : io_redirect
| cmd_suffix io_redirect
| WORD
| cmd_suffix WORD
;
redirect_list : io_redirect
| redirect_list io_redirect
;
io_redirect : io_file
| IO_NUMBER io_file
| IO_LOCATION io_file /* Optionally supported */
| io_here
| IO_NUMBER io_here
| IO_LOCATION io_here /* Optionally supported */
;
io_file : '<' filename
| LESSAND filename
| '>' filename
 | GREATAND filename
| DGREAT filename
| LESSGREAT filename
| CLOBBER filename
;
filename : WORD /* Apply rule 2 */
;
io_here : DLESS here_end
| DLESSDASH here_end
;
here_end : WORD /* Apply rule 3 */
;
newline_list : NEWLINE
| newline_list NEWLINE
;
linebreak : newline_list
| /* empty */
;
separator_op : '&'
| ';'
;
separator : separator_op linebreak
| newline_list
;
sequential_sep : ';' linebreak
| newline_list
;

2.11 Job Control

Job control is defined (see XBD 3.181 Job Control) as a facility that allows users selectively to stop (suspend) the
execution of processes and continue (resume) their execution at a later point. It is jointly supplied by the terminal
I/O driver and a command interpreter. The shell is one such command interpreter and job control in the shell is
enabled by set -m (which is enabled by default in interactive shells). The remainder of this section describes the job
control facility provided by the shell. Requirements relating to background jobs stated in this section only apply to
job-control background jobs.

If the shell has a controlling terminal and it is the controlling process for the terminal session, it shall initially set the
foreground process group ID associated with the terminal to its own process group ID. Otherwise, if it has a
controlling terminal, it shall initially perform the following steps if interactive and may perform them if non-
interactive:

1. If its process group is the foreground process group associated with the terminal, the shell shall set its
process group ID to its process ID (if they are not already equal) and set the foreground process group ID
associated with the terminal to its process group ID.
2. If its process group is not the foreground process group associated with the terminal (which would result
from it being started by a job-control shell as a background job), the shell shall either stop itself by sending
itself a SIGTTIN signal or, if interactive, attempt to read from standard input (which generates a SIGTTIN signal
if standard input is the controlling terminal). If it is stopped, then when it continues execution (after receiving
a SIGCONT signal) it shall repeat these steps.

Subsequently, the shell shall change the foreground process group associated with its controlling terminal when a
foreground job is running as noted in the description below.
When job control is enabled, the shell shall create one or more jobs when it executes a list (see 2.9.3 Lists) that has
one of the following forms:

A single asynchronous AND-OR list

One or more sequentially executed AND-OR lists followed by at most one asynchronous AND-OR list

For the purposes of job control, a list that includes more than one asynchronous AND-OR list shall be treated as if it
were split into multiple separate lists, each ending with an asynchronous AND-OR list.

When a job consisting of a single asynchronous AND-OR list is created, it shall form a background job and the
associated process ID shall be that of a child process that is made a process group leader, with all other processes (if
any) that the shell creates to execute the AND-OR list initially having this process ID as their process group ID.

For a list consisting of one or more sequentially executed AND-OR lists followed by at most one asynchronous AND-
OR list, the whole list shall form a single foreground job up until the sequentially executed AND-OR lists have all
completed execution, at which point the asynchronous AND-OR list (if any) shall form a background job as described
above.

For each pipeline in a foreground job, if the pipeline is executed while the list is still a foreground job, the set of
processes comprising the pipeline, and any processes descended from it, shall all be in the same process group,
unless the shell executes some of the commands in the pipeline in the current shell execution environment and
others in a subshell environment; in this case the process group ID of the current shell need not change (or cannot
change if it is the session leader), and consequently the process group ID that the other processes all share may
differ from the process group ID of the current shell (which means that a SIGSTOP, SIGTSTP, SIGTTIN, or SIGTTOU
signal sent to one of those process groups does not cause the whole pipeline to stop).

A background job that was created on execution of an asynchronous AND-OR list can be brought into the
foreground by means of the fg utility (if supported); in this case the entire job shall become a single foreground job.
If a process that the shell subsequently waits for is part of this foreground job and is stopped by a signal, the entire
job shall become a suspended job and the behavior shall be as if the process had been stopped while the job was
running in the background.

When a foreground job is created, or a background job is brought into the foreground by the fg utility, if the shell
has a controlling terminal it shall set the foreground process group ID associated with the terminal as follows:

If the job was originally created as a background job, the foreground process group ID shall be set to the
process ID of the process that the shell made a process group leader when it executed the asynchronous
AND-OR list.
If the job was originally created as a foreground job, the foreground process group ID shall be set as follows
when each pipeline in the job is executed:
If the shell is not itself executing, in the current shell execution environment, all of the commands in the
pipeline, the foreground process group ID shall be set to the process group ID that is shared by the
other processes executing the pipeline (see above).
If all of the commands in the pipeline are being executed by the shell itself in the current shell
execution environment, the foreground process group ID shall be set to the process group ID of the
shell.

When a foreground job terminates, or becomes a suspended job (see below), if the shell has a controlling terminal it
shall set the foreground process group ID associated with the terminal to the process group ID of the shell.

Each background job (whether suspended or not) shall have associated with it a job number and a process ID that is
known in the current shell execution environment. When a background job is brought into the foreground by means
of the fg utility, the associated job number shall be removed from the shell's background jobs list and the associated
process ID shall be removed from the list of process IDs known in the current shell execution environment.

If a process that the shell is waiting for is part of a foreground job that was started as a foreground job and is
stopped by a catchable signal (SIGTSTP, SIGTTIN, or SIGTTOU):
 If the currently executing AND-OR list within the list comprising the foreground job consists of a single
pipeline in which all of the commands are simple commands, the shell shall either create a suspended job
consisting of at least that AND-OR list and the remaining (if any) AND-OR lists in the same list, or create a
suspended job consisting of just that AND-OR list and discard the remaining (if any) AND-OR lists in the same
list.
Otherwise, the shell shall create a suspended job consisting of a set of commands, from within the list
comprising the foreground job, that is unspecified except that the set shall include at least the pipeline to
which the stopped process belongs. Commands in the foreground job that have not already completed and
are not included in the suspended job shall be discarded.

Note:
Although only a pipeline of simple commands is guaranteed to remain intact if started in the foreground and
subsequently suspended, it is possible to ensure that a complex AND-OR list will remain intact when
suspended by starting it in the background and immediately bringing it into the foreground. For example:

command1 && command2 | { command3 || command4; } & fg

If a process that the shell is waiting for is part of a foreground job that was started as a foreground job and is
stopped by a SIGSTOP signal, the behavior shall be as described above for a catchable signal unless the shell was
executing a built-in utility in the current shell execution environment when the SIGSTOP was delivered, resulting in
the shell itself being stopped by the signal, in which case if the shell subsequently receives a SIGCONT signal and has
one or more child processes that remain stopped, the shell shall create a suspended job as if only those child
processes had been stopped.

When a suspended job is created as a result of a foreground job being stopped, it shall be assigned a job number,
and an interactive shell shall write, and a non-interactive shell may write, a message to standard error, formatted as
described by the jobs utility (without the -l option) for a suspended job. The message may indicate that the
commands comprising the job include commands that have already completed; in this case the completed
commands shall not be repeated if execution of the job is subsequently continued. If the shell is interactive, it shall
save the terminal settings before changing them to the settings it needs to read further commands.

When a process associated with a background job is stopped by a SIGSTOP, SIGTSTP, SIGTTIN, or SIGTTOU signal,
the shell shall convert the (non-suspended) background job into a suspended job and an interactive shell shall write
a message to standard error, formatted as described by the jobs utility (without the -l option) for a suspended job, at
the following time:

If set -b is enabled, the message shall be written either immediately after the job became suspended or
immediately prior to writing the next prompt for input.
If set -b is disabled, the message shall be written immediately prior to writing the next prompt for input.

Execution of a suspended job can be continued as a foreground job by means of the fg utility (if supported), or as a
(non-suspended) background job either by means of the bg utility (if supported) or by sending the stopped
processes a SIGCONT signal. The fg and bg utilities shall send a SIGCONT signal to the process group of the
process(es) whose stopped wait status caused the shell to suspend the job. If the shell has a controlling terminal, the
fg utility shall send the SIGCONT signal after it has set the foreground process group ID associated with the terminal
(see above). If the fg utility is used from an interactive shell to bring into the foreground a suspended job that was
created from a foreground job, before it sends the SIGCONT signal the fg utility shall restore the terminal settings to
the ones that the shell saved when the job was suspended.

When a background job completes or is terminated by a signal, an interactive shell shall write a message to
standard error, formatted as described by the jobs utility (without the -l option) for a job that completed or was
terminated by a signal, respectively, at the following time:

If set -b is enabled, the message shall be written immediately after the job completes or is terminated.
If set -b is disabled, the message shall be written immediately prior to writing the next prompt for input.
In each case above where an interactive shell writes a message immediately prior to writing the next prompt for
input, the same message may also be written by a non-interactive shell, at any of the following times:

After the next time a foreground job terminates or is suspended

Before the shell parses further input
Before the shell exits

2.12 Signals and Error Handling

If job control is disabled (see the description of set -m) when the shell executes an asynchronous AND-OR list, the
commands in the list shall inherit from the shell a signal action of ignored (SIG_IGN) for the SIGINT and SIGQUIT
signals. In all other cases, commands executed by the shell shall inherit the same signal actions as those inherited
by the shell from its parent unless a signal action is modified by the trap special built-in (see trap)

When a signal for which a trap has been set is received while the shell is waiting for the completion of a utility
executing a foreground command, the trap associated with that signal shall not be executed until after the
foreground command has completed. When the shell is waiting, by means of the wait utility, for asynchronous
commands to complete, the reception of a signal for which a trap has been set shall cause the wait utility to return
immediately with an exit status >128, immediately after which the trap associated with that signal shall be taken.

If multiple signals are pending for the shell for which there are associated trap actions, the order of execution of
trap actions is unspecified.

2.13 Shell Execution Environment

A shell execution environment consists of the following:

Open files inherited upon invocation of the shell, plus open files controlled by exec
Working directory as set by cd
File creation mask set by umask
File size limit as set by ulimit
Current traps set by trap
Shell parameters that are set by variable assignment (see the set special built-in) or from the System
Interfaces volume of POSIX.1-2024 environment inherited by the shell when it begins (see the export special
built-in)
Shell functions; see 2.9.5 Function Definition Command
Options turned on at invocation or by set
Background jobs and their associated process IDs, and process IDs of child processes created to execute
asynchronous AND-OR lists while job control is disabled; together these process IDs constitute the process IDs
"known to this shell environment". If the implementation supports non-job-control background jobs, the list
of known process IDs and the list of background jobs may form a single list even though this standard
describes them as being updated separately. See 2.9.3.1 Asynchronous AND-OR Lists
Shell aliases; see 2.3.1 Alias Substitution

Utilities other than the special built-ins (see 2.15 Special Built-In Utilities) shall be invoked in a separate environment
that consists of the following. The initial value of these objects shall be the same as that for the parent shell, except
as noted below.

Open files inherited on invocation of the shell, open files controlled by the exec special built-in plus any
modifications, and additions specified by any redirections to the utility
Current working directory
File creation mask
If the utility is a shell script, traps caught by the shell shall be set to the default values and traps ignored by
the shell shall be set to be ignored by the utility; if the utility is not a shell script, the trap actions (default or
ignore) shall be mapped into the appropriate signal handling actions for the utility
 Variables with the export attribute, along with those explicitly exported for the duration of the command, shall
be passed to the utility environment variables
It is unspecified whether environment variables that were passed to the invoking shell when it was invoked
itself, but were not used to initialize shell variables (see 2.5.3 Shell Variables) because they had invalid names,
are included in the invoked utility's environment.

The environment of the shell process shall not be changed by the utility unless explicitly specified by the utility
description (for example, cd and umask).

A subshell environment shall be created as a duplicate of the shell environment, except that:

Unless specified otherwise (see trap), traps that are not being ignored shall be set to the default action.
If the shell is interactive, the subshell shall behave as a non-interactive shell in all respects except:
The expansion of the special parameter '-' may continue to indicate that it is interactive.
The set -n option may be ignored.

Changes made to the subshell environment shall not affect the shell environment. Command substitution,
commands that are grouped with parentheses, and asynchronous AND-OR lists shall be executed in a subshell
environment. Additionally, each command of a multi-command pipeline is in a subshell environment; as an
extension, however, any or all commands in a pipeline may be executed in the current environment. Except where
otherwise stated, all other commands shall be executed in the current shell environment.

2.14 Pattern Matching Notation

The pattern matching notation described in this section is used to specify patterns for matching character strings in
the shell. This notation is also used by some other utilities (find, pax, and optionally make) and by some system
interfaces (fnmatch(), glob(), and wordexp()). Historically, pattern matching notation is related to, but slightly different
from, the regular expression notation described in XBD 9. Regular Expressions. For this reason, the description of the
rules for this pattern matching notation are based on the description of regular expression notation, modified to
account for the differences.

If an attempt is made to use pattern matching notation to match a string that contains one or more bytes that do
not form part of a valid character, the behavior is unspecified. Since pathnames can contain such bytes, portable
applications need to ensure that the current locale is the C or POSIX locale when performing pattern matching (or
expansion) on arbitrary pathnames.

2.14.1 Patterns Matching a Single Character

The following patterns shall match a single character: ordinary characters, special pattern characters, and pattern
bracket expressions. The pattern bracket expression also shall match a single collating element.

In a pattern, or part of one, where a shell-quoting <backslash> can be used, a <backslash> character shall escape the
following character as described in 2.2.1 Escape Character (Backslash), regardless of whether or not the <backslash>
is inside a bracket expression. (The sequence "\\" represents one literal <backslash>.)

In a pattern, or part of one, where a shell-quoting <backslash> cannot be used to preserve the literal value of a
character that would otherwise be treated as special:

A <backslash> character that is not inside a bracket expression shall preserve the literal value of the following
character, unless the following character is in a part of the pattern where shell quoting can be used and is a
shell quoting character, in which case the behavior is unspecified.
For the shell only, it is unspecified whether or not a <backslash> character inside a bracket expression
preserves the literal value of the following character.
All of the requirements and effects of quoting on ordinary, shell special, and special pattern characters shall apply to
escaping in this context, except where specified otherwise. (Situations where this applies include word expansions
when a pattern used in pathname expansion is not present in the original word but results from an earlier
expansion, or the argument to the find -name or -path primary as passed to find, or the pattern argument to the
fnmatch() and glob() functions when FNM_NOESCAPE or GLOB_NOESCAPE is not set in flags, respectively.)

If a pattern ends with an unescaped <backslash>, the behavior is unspecified.

An ordinary character is a pattern that shall match itself. In a pattern, or part of one, where a shell-quoting
<backslash> can be used, an ordinary character can be any character in the supported character set except for NUL,
those special shell characters in 2.2 Quoting that require quoting, and the three special pattern characters described
below. In a pattern, or part of one, where a shell-quoting <backslash> cannot be used to preserve the literal value of
a character that would otherwise be treated as special, an ordinary character can be any character in the supported
character set except for NUL and the three special pattern characters described below. Matching shall be based on
the bit pattern used for encoding the character, not on the graphic representation of the character. If any character
(ordinary, shell special, or pattern special) is quoted, or escaped with a <backslash>, that pattern shall match the
character itself. The application shall ensure that it quotes or escapes any character that would otherwise be treated
as special, in order for it to be matched as an ordinary character.

When unquoted, unescaped, and not inside a bracket expression, the following three characters shall have special
meaning in the specification of patterns:

?
A <question-mark> is a pattern that shall match any character.
*
An <asterisk> is a pattern that shall match multiple characters, as described in 2.14.2 Patterns Matching
Multiple Characters.
[
A <left-square-bracket> shall introduce a bracket expression if the characters following it meet the
requirements for bracket expressions stated in XBD 9.3.5 RE Bracket Expression, except that the <exclamation-
mark> character ('!') shall replace the <circumflex> character ('^') in its role in a non-matching list in the
regular expression notation. A bracket expression starting with an unquoted <circumflex> character produces
unspecified results. A <left-square-bracket> that does not introduce a valid bracket expression shall match the
character itself.

2.14.2 Patterns Matching Multiple Characters

The following rules are used to construct patterns matching multiple characters from patterns matching a single
character:

1. The <asterisk> ('*') is a pattern that shall match any string, including the null string.
2. The concatenation of patterns matching a single character is a valid pattern that shall match the
concatenation of the single characters or collating elements matched by each of the concatenated patterns.
3. The concatenation of one or more patterns matching a single character with one or more <asterisk>
characters is a valid pattern. In such patterns, each <asterisk> shall match a string of zero or more characters,
matching the greatest possible number of characters that still allows the remainder of the pattern to match
the string.

2.14.3 Patterns Used for Filename Expansion

The rules described so far in 2.14.1 Patterns Matching a Single Character and 2.14.2 Patterns Matching Multiple
Characters are qualified by the following rules that apply when pattern matching notation is used for filename
expansion:
1. The <slash> character in a pathname shall be explicitly matched by using one or more <slash> characters in
the pattern; it shall neither be matched by the <asterisk> or <question-mark> special characters nor by a
bracket expression. <slash> characters in the pattern shall be identified before bracket expressions; thus, a
<slash> cannot be included in a pattern bracket expression used for filename expansion. If a <slash>
character is found following an unescaped <left-square-bracket> character before a corresponding <right-
square-bracket> is found, the open bracket shall be treated as an ordinary character. For example, the pattern
"a[b/c]d" does not match such pathnames as abd or a/d. It only matches a pathname of literally a[b/c]d.
2. If a filename begins with a <period> ('.'), the <period> shall be explicitly matched by using a <period> as the
first character of the pattern or immediately following a <slash> character. The leading <period> shall not be
matched by:
The <asterisk> or <question-mark> special characters
A bracket expression containing a non-matching list, such as "[!a]", a range expression, such as "
[%-0]", or a character class expression, such as "[[:punct:]]"

It is unspecified whether an explicit <period> in a bracket expression matching list, such as "[.abc]", can
match a leading <period> in a filename.

3. If a specified pattern contains any '*', '?' or '[' characters that will be treated as special (see 2.14.1
Patterns Matching a Single Character), it shall be matched against existing filenames and pathnames, as
appropriate; if directory entries for dot and dot-dot exist, they may be ignored. Each component that contains
any such characters shall require read permission in the directory containing that component. Each
component that contains a <backslash> that will be treated as special may require read permission in the
directory containing that component. Any component, except the last, that does not contain any '*', '?' or
'[' characters that will be treated as special shall require search permission. If these permissions are denied,
or if an attempt to open or search a pathname as a directory, or an attempt to read an opened directory, fails
because of an error condition that is related to file system contents, this shall not be considered an error and
pathname expansion shall continue as if the pathname had named an existing directory which had been
successfully opened and read, or searched, and no matching directory entries had been found in it. For other
error conditions it is unspecified whether pathname expansion fails or they are treated the same as when
permission is denied.

For example, given the pattern:

/foo/bar/x*/bam

search permission is needed for directories / and foo, search and read permissions are needed for directory
bar, and search permission is needed for each x* directory.

If the pattern matches any existing filenames or pathnames, the pattern shall be replaced with those
filenames and pathnames, sorted according to the collating sequence in effect in the current locale. If this
collating sequence does not have a total ordering of all characters (see XBD 7.3.2 LC_COLLATE), any filenames
or pathnames that collate equally shall be further compared byte-by-byte using the collating sequence for the
POSIX locale.

If the pattern contains an open bracket ('[') that does not introduce a bracket expression as in XBD 9.3.5 RE
Bracket Expression, it is unspecified whether other unquoted '*', '?', '[' or <backslash> characters within
the same slash-delimited component of the pattern retain their special meanings or are treated as ordinary
characters. For example, the pattern "a*[/b*" may match all filenames beginning with 'b' in the directory
"a*[" or it may match all filenames beginning with 'b' in all directories with names beginning with 'a' and
ending with '['.

If the pattern does not match any existing filenames or pathnames, the pattern string shall be left
unchanged.

Note:
 A future version of this standard may require that directory entries for dot and dot-dot are ignored (if
they exist) when matching patterns against existing filenames. For example, when expanding the
pattern ".*" the result would not include dot and dot-dot.
4. If a specified pattern does not contain any '*', '?' or '[' characters that will be treated as special, the
pattern string shall be left unchanged.

2.15 Special Built-In Utilities

The following "special built-in" utilities shall be supported in the shell command language. The output of each
command, if any, shall be written to standard output, subject to the normal redirection and piping possible with all
commands.

The term "built-in" implies that there is no need to execute a separate executable file because the utility is
implemented in the shell itself. An implementation may choose to make any utility a built-in; however, the special
built-in utilities described here differ from regular built-in utilities in two respects:

1. An error in a special built-in utility may cause a shell executing that utility to abort, while an error in a regular
built-in utility shall not cause a shell executing that utility to abort. (See 2.8.1 Consequences of Shell Errors for
the consequences of errors on interactive and non-interactive shells.) If a special built-in utility encountering
an error does not abort the shell, its exit value shall be non-zero.
2. As described in 2.9.1 Simple Commands, variable assignments preceding the invocation of a special built-in
utility affect the current execution environment; this shall not be the case with a regular built-in or other
utility.

The special built-in utilities in this section need not be provided in a manner accessible via the exec family of
functions defined in the System Interfaces volume of POSIX.1-2024.

Some of the special built-ins are described as conforming to XBD 12.2 Utility Syntax Guidelines. For those that are not,
the requirement in 1.4 Utility Description Defaults that "--" be recognized as a first argument to be discarded does
not apply and a conforming application shall not use that argument.

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POSIX™ is a Trademark of The IEEE.
Copyright © 2001-2024 The IEEE and The Open Group, All Rights Reserved
[ Main Index | XBD | XSH | XCU | XRAT ]

NAME

break — exit from for, while, or until loop

SYNOPSIS

break [n]

DESCRIPTION
 If n is specified, the break utility shall exit from the nth enclosing for, while, or until loop. If n is not
specified, break shall behave as if n was specified as 1. Execution shall continue with the command
immediately following the exited loop. The application shall ensure that the value of n is a positive
decimal integer. If n is greater than the number of enclosing loops, the outermost enclosing loop shall
be exited. If there is no enclosing loop, the behavior is unspecified.

A loop shall enclose a break or continue command if the loop lexically encloses the command. A loop
lexically encloses a break or continue command if the command is:

Executing in the same execution environment (see 2.13 Shell Execution Environment) as the
compound-list of the loop's do-group (see 2.10.2 Shell Grammar Rules), and
Contained in a compound-list associated with the loop (either in the compound-list of the loop's
do-group or, if the loop is a while or until loop, in the compound-list following the while or until
reserved word), and
Not in the body of a function whose function definition command (see 2.9.5 Function Definition
Command) is contained in a compound-list associated with the loop.

If n is greater than the number of lexically enclosing loops and there is a non-lexically enclosing loop in
progress in the same execution environment as the break or continue command, it is unspecified
whether that loop encloses the command.

OPTIONS

None.

OPERANDS

See the DESCRIPTION.

STDIN

Not used.

INPUT FILES

None.

ENVIRONMENT VARIABLES

None.

ASYNCHRONOUS EVENTS

Default.

STDOUT

Not used.

STDERR
 The standard error shall be used only for diagnostic messages.

OUTPUT FILES

None.

EXTENDED DESCRIPTION

None.

EXIT STATUS

0
Successful completion.
>0
The n value was not an unsigned decimal integer greater than or equal to 1.

CONSEQUENCES OF ERRORS

Default.

The following sections are informative.

APPLICATION USAGE

None.

EXAMPLES

for i in *
do
if test -d "$i"
then break
fi
done

The results of running the following example are unspecified: there are two loops in progress when the
break command is executed, and they are in the same execution environment, but neither loop is
lexically enclosing the break command. (There are no loops lexically enclosing the continue commands,
either.)

foo() {
for j in 1 2; do
echo 'break 2' >/tmp/do_break
echo " sourcing /tmp/do_break ($j)..."
# the behavior of the break from running the following command
# results in unspecified behavior:
. /tmp/do_break
 do_continue() { continue 2; }
echo " running do_continue ($j)..."
# the behavior of the continue in the following function call
# results in unspecified behavior (if execution reaches this
# point):
do_continue

trap 'continue 2' USR1

echo " sending SIGUSR1 to self ($j)..."
# the behavior of the continue in the trap invoked from the
# following signal results in unspecified behavior (if
# execution reaches this point):
kill -s USR1 $$
sleep 1
done
}
for i in 1 2; do
echo "running foo ($i)..."
foo
done

RATIONALE

In early proposals, consideration was given to expanding the syntax of break and continue to refer to a
label associated with the appropriate loop as a preferable alternative to the n method. However, this
volume of POSIX.1-2024 does reserve the name space of command names ending with a <colon>. It is
anticipated that a future implementation could take advantage of this and provide something like:

outofloop: for i in a b c d e
do
for j in 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9
do
if test -r "${i}${j}"
then break outofloop
fi
done
done

and that this might be standardized after implementation experience is achieved.

FUTURE DIRECTIONS

None.

SEE ALSO

2.15 Special Built-In Utilities

CHANGE HISTORY
Issue 6

IEEE Std 1003.1-2001/Cor 1-2002, item XCU/TC1/D6/5 is applied so that the reference page sections use
terms as described in the Utility Description Defaults ( 1.4 Utility Description Defaults). No change in
behavior is intended.

Issue 7

POSIX.1-2008, Technical Corrigendum 2, XCU/TC2-2008/0046 [842] is applied.

Issue 8

Austin Group Defect 1058 is applied, clarifying that the requirement for n to be a positive decimal
integer is a requirement on the application.

End of informative text.

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NAME

colon — null utility

SYNOPSIS

: [argument...]

DESCRIPTION

This utility shall do nothing except return a 0 exit status. It is used when a command is needed, as in the
then condition of an if command, but nothing is to be done by the command.

OPTIONS

This utility shall not recognize the "--" argument in the manner specified by Guideline 10 of XBD 12.2
Utility Syntax Guidelines.

Implementations shall not support any options.

OPERANDS

See the DESCRIPTION.

STDIN

Not used.

INPUT FILES
 None.

ENVIRONMENT VARIABLES

None.

ASYNCHRONOUS EVENTS

Default.

STDOUT

Not used.

STDERR

Not used.

OUTPUT FILES

None.

EXTENDED DESCRIPTION

None.

EXIT STATUS

Zero.

CONSEQUENCES OF ERRORS

None.

The following sections are informative.

APPLICATION USAGE

See the APPLICATION USAGE for true.

EXAMPLES

: "${X=abc}"
if false
then :
else printf '%s\n' "$X"
fi
 abc

As with any of the special built-ins, the null utility can also have variable assignments and redirections
associated with it, such as:

x=y : > z

which sets variable x to the value y (so that it persists after the null utility completes) and creates or
truncates file z; if the file cannot be created or truncated, a non-interactive shell exits (see 2.8.1
Consequences of Shell Errors).

RATIONALE

None.

FUTURE DIRECTIONS

None.

SEE ALSO

2.15 Special Built-In Utilities, true

CHANGE HISTORY

Issue 6

IEEE Std 1003.1-2001/Cor 1-2002, item XCU/TC1/D6/5 is applied so that the reference page sections use
terms as described in the Utility Description Defaults ( 1.4 Utility Description Defaults). No change in
behavior is intended.

Issue 7

SD5-XCU-ERN-97 is applied, updating the SYNOPSIS.

Issue 8

Austin Group Defect 1272 is applied, clarifying that the null utility does not process its arguments, does
not recognize the "--" end-of-options delimiter, does not support any options, and does not write to
standard error.

Austin Group Defect 1640 is applied, changing the APPLICATION USAGE section.

End of informative text.

<<< Previous Home Next >>>

NAME
 continue — continue for, while, or until loop

SYNOPSIS

continue [n]

DESCRIPTION

If n is specified, the continue utility shall return to the top of the nth enclosing for, while, or until loop.
If n is not specified, continue shall behave as if n was specified as 1. Returning to the top of the loop
involves repeating the condition list of a while or until loop or performing the next assignment of a for
loop, and re-executing the loop if appropriate.

The application shall ensure that the value of n is a positive decimal integer. If n is greater than the
number of enclosing loops, the outermost enclosing loop shall be used. If there is no enclosing loop,
the behavior is unspecified.

The meaning of "enclosing" shall be as specified in the description of the break utility.

OPTIONS

None.

OPERANDS

See the DESCRIPTION.

STDIN

Not used.

INPUT FILES

None.

ENVIRONMENT VARIABLES

None.

ASYNCHRONOUS EVENTS

Default.

STDOUT

Not used.

STDERR
 The standard error shall be used only for diagnostic messages.

OUTPUT FILES

None.

EXTENDED DESCRIPTION

None.

EXIT STATUS

0
Successful completion.
>0
The n value was not an unsigned decimal integer greater than or equal to 1.

CONSEQUENCES OF ERRORS

Default.

The following sections are informative.

APPLICATION USAGE

None.

EXAMPLES

for i in *
do
if test -d "$i"
then continue
fi
printf '"%s" is not a directory.\n' "$i"
done

RATIONALE

None.

FUTURE DIRECTIONS

None.

SEE ALSO

2.15 Special Built-In Utilities

CHANGE HISTORY

Issue 6

IEEE Std 1003.1-2001/Cor 1-2002, item XCU/TC1/D6/5 is applied so that the reference page sections use
terms as described in the Utility Description Defaults ( 1.4 Utility Description Defaults). No change in
behavior is intended.

Issue 7

The example is changed to use the printf utility rather than echo.

POSIX.1-2008, Technical Corrigendum 2, XCU/TC2-2008/0046 [842] is applied.

Issue 8

Austin Group Defect 1058 is applied, clarifying that the requirement for n to be a positive decimal
integer is a requirement on the application.

End of informative text.

<<< Previous Home Next >>>

NAME

dot — execute commands in the current environment

SYNOPSIS

. file

DESCRIPTION

The shell shall tokenize (see 2.3 Token Recognition) the contents of the file, parse the tokens (see 2.10
Shell Grammar), and execute the resulting commands in the current environment. It is unspecified
whether the commands are parsed and executed as a program (as for a shell script) or are parsed as a
single compound_list that is executed after the entire file has been parsed.

If file does not contain a <slash>, the shell shall use the search path specified by PATH to find the
directory containing file. Unlike normal command search, however, the file searched for by the dot utility
need not be executable. If no readable file is found, a non-interactive shell shall abort; an interactive
shell shall write a diagnostic message to standard error.

The dot special built-in shall support XBD 12.2 Utility Syntax Guidelines, except for Guidelines 1 and 2.

OPTIONS

None.

OPERANDS
 See the DESCRIPTION.

STDIN

Not used.

INPUT FILES

See the DESCRIPTION.

ENVIRONMENT VARIABLES

See the DESCRIPTION.

ASYNCHRONOUS EVENTS

Default.

STDOUT

Not used.

STDERR

The standard error shall be used only for diagnostic messages.

OUTPUT FILES

None.

EXTENDED DESCRIPTION

None.

EXIT STATUS

If no readable file was found or if the commands in the file could not be parsed, and the shell is
interactive (and therefore does not abort; see 2.8.1 Consequences of Shell Errors), the exit status shall
be non-zero. Otherwise, return the value of the last command executed, or a zero exit status if no
command is executed.

CONSEQUENCES OF ERRORS

Default.

The following sections are informative.

APPLICATION USAGE

None.

EXAMPLES

cat foobar

foo=hello bar=world

. ./foobar
echo $foo $bar

hello world

RATIONALE

Some older implementations searched the current directory for the file, even if the value of PATH
disallowed it. This behavior was omitted from this volume of POSIX.1-2024 due to concerns about
introducing the susceptibility to trojan horses that the user might be trying to avoid by leaving dot out
of PATH .

The KornShell version of dot takes optional arguments that are set to the positional parameters. This is
a valid extension that allows a dot script to behave identically to a function.

FUTURE DIRECTIONS

None.

SEE ALSO

2.15 Special Built-In Utilities, return

CHANGE HISTORY

Issue 6

IEEE Std 1003.1-2001/Cor 1-2002, item XCU/TC1/D6/5 is applied so that the reference page sections use
terms as described in the Utility Description Defaults ( 1.4 Utility Description Defaults). No change in
behavior is intended.

Issue 7

SD5-XCU-ERN-164 is applied.

POSIX.1-2008, Technical Corrigendum 1, XCU/TC1-2008/0038 [114] and XCU/TC1-2008/0039 [214] are

applied.
Issue 8

Austin Group Defect 252 is applied, adding a requirement for dot to support XBD 12.2 Utility Syntax
Guidelines (except for Guidelines 1 and 2, since the utility's name is '.').

Austin Group Defect 953 is applied, clarifying how the commands in the file are parsed.

Austin Group Defect 1265 is applied, updating the DESCRIPTION to align with the changes made to
2.8.1 Consequences of Shell Errors between Issue 6 and Issue 7.

End of informative text.

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NAME

eval — construct command by concatenating arguments

SYNOPSIS

eval [argument...]

DESCRIPTION

The eval utility shall construct a command string by concatenating arguments together, separating each
with a <space> character. The constructed command string shall be tokenized (see 2.3 Token
Recognition), parsed (see 2.10 Shell Grammar), and executed by the shell in the current environment. It
is unspecified whether the commands are parsed and executed as a program (as for a shell script) or
are parsed as a single compound_list that is executed after the entire constructed command string has
been parsed.

OPTIONS

None.

OPERANDS

See the DESCRIPTION.

STDIN

Not used.

INPUT FILES

None.

ENVIRONMENT VARIABLES
 None.

ASYNCHRONOUS EVENTS

Default.

STDOUT

Not used.

STDERR

The standard error shall be used only for diagnostic messages.

OUTPUT FILES

None.

EXTENDED DESCRIPTION

None.

EXIT STATUS

If there are no arguments, or only null arguments, eval shall return a zero exit status; otherwise, it shall
return the exit status of the command defined by the string of concatenated arguments separated by
<space> characters, or a non-zero exit status if the concatenation could not be parsed as a command
and the shell is interactive (and therefore did not abort).

CONSEQUENCES OF ERRORS

Default.

The following sections are informative.

APPLICATION USAGE

Since eval is not required to recognize the "--" end of options delimiter, in cases where the
argument(s) to eval might begin with '-' it is recommended that the first argument is prefixed by a
string that will not alter the commands to be executed, such as a <space> character:

eval " $commands"

or:

eval " $(some_command)"

EXAMPLES
 foo=10 x=foo
y='$'$x
echo $y

$foo

eval y='$'$x
echo $y

10

RATIONALE

This standard allows, but does not require, eval to recognize "--". Although this means applications
cannot use "--" to protect against options supported as an extension (or errors reported for
unsupported options), the nature of the eval utility is such that other means can be used to provide this
protection (see APPLICATION USAGE above).

FUTURE DIRECTIONS

None.

SEE ALSO

2.15 Special Built-In Utilities

CHANGE HISTORY

Issue 6

IEEE Std 1003.1-2001/Cor 1-2002, item XCU/TC1/D6/5 is applied so that the reference page sections use
terms as described in the Utility Description Defaults ( 1.4 Utility Description Defaults). No change in
behavior is intended.

Issue 7

SD5-XCU-ERN-97 is applied, updating the SYNOPSIS.

POSIX.1-2008, Technical Corrigendum 1, XCU/TC1-2008/0040 [114], XCU/TC1-2008/0041 [163], and

XCU/TC1-2008/0042 [163] are applied.

Issue 8

Austin Group Defect 953 is applied, clarifying how the commands in the constructed command string
are parsed.

End of informative text.

<<< Previous Home Next >>>

NAME

exec — perform redirections in the current shell or execute a utility

SYNOPSIS

exec [utility [argument...]]

DESCRIPTION

If exec is specified with no operands, any redirections associated with the exec command shall be made
in the current shell execution environment. If any file descriptors with numbers greater than 2 are
opened by those redirections, it is unspecified whether those file descriptors remain open when the
shell invokes another utility. Scripts concerned that child shells could misuse open file descriptors can
always close them explicitly, as shown in one of the following examples. If the result of the redirections
would be that file descriptor 0, 1, or 2 is closed, implementations may open the file descriptor to an
unspecified file.

If exec is specified with a utility operand, the shell shall execute a non-built-in utility as described in
2.9.1.6 Non-built-in Utility Execution with utility as the command name and the argument operands (if
any) as the command arguments.

If the exec command fails, a non-interactive shell shall exit from the current shell execution
environment; [UP] an interactive shell may exit from a subshell environment but shall not exit if the
current shell environment is not a subshell environment.

If the exec command fails and the shell does not exit, any redirections associated with the exec
command that were successfully made shall take effect in the current shell execution environment.

The exec special built-in shall support XBD 12.2 Utility Syntax Guidelines.

OPTIONS

None.

OPERANDS

See the DESCRIPTION.

STDIN

Not used.

INPUT FILES

None.

ENVIRONMENT VARIABLES

The following environment variable shall affect the execution of exec:

 PATH
Determine the search path when looking for the utility given as the utility operand; see XBD 8.3
Other Environment Variables.

ASYNCHRONOUS EVENTS

Default.

STDOUT

Not used.

STDERR

The standard error shall be used only for diagnostic messages.

OUTPUT FILES

None.

EXTENDED DESCRIPTION

None.

EXIT STATUS

If utility is specified and is executed, exec shall not return to the shell; rather, the exit status of the
current shell execution environment shall be the exit status of utility. If utility is specified and an attempt
to execute it as a non-built-in utility fails, the exit status shall be as described in 2.9.1.6 Non-built-in
Utility Execution. If a redirection error occurs (see 2.8.1 Consequences of Shell Errors), the exit status
shall be a value in the range 1-125. Otherwise, exec shall return a zero exit status.

CONSEQUENCES OF ERRORS

Default.

The following sections are informative.

APPLICATION USAGE

None.

EXAMPLES

Open readfile as file descriptor 3 for reading:

exec 3< readfile

Open writefile as file descriptor 4 for writing:

 exec 4> writefile

Make file descriptor 5 a copy of file descriptor 0:

exec 5<&0

Close file descriptor 3:

exec 3<&-

Cat the file maggie by replacing the current shell with the cat utility:

exec cat maggie

An application that is not concerned with strict conformance can make use of optional %g support
known to be present in the implementation's printf utility by ensuring that any shell built-in version is
not executed instead, and using a subshell so that the shell continues afterwards:

(exec printf '%g\n' "$float_value")

RATIONALE

Most historical implementations were not conformant in that:

foo=bar exec cmd

did not pass foo to cmd.

FUTURE DIRECTIONS

None.

SEE ALSO

2.15 Special Built-In Utilities

CHANGE HISTORY

Issue 6

IEEE Std 1003.1-2001/Cor 1-2002, item XCU/TC1/D6/5 is applied so that the reference page sections use
terms as described in the Utility Description Defaults ( 1.4 Utility Description Defaults). No change in
behavior is intended.

Issue 7

SD5-XCU-ERN-97 is applied, updating the SYNOPSIS.

Issue 8

Austin Group Defect 252 is applied, adding a requirement for exec to support XBD 12.2 Utility Syntax
Guidelines.
 Austin Group Defect 1157 is applied, clarifying the execution of non-built-in utilities.

Austin Group Defect 1587 is applied, changing the ENVIRONMENT VARIABLES section.

End of informative text.

<<< Previous Home Next >>>

NAME

exit — cause the shell to exit

SYNOPSIS

exit [n]

DESCRIPTION

The exit utility shall cause the shell to exit from its current execution environment. If the current
execution environment is a subshell environment, the shell shall exit from the subshell environment
and continue in the environment from which that subshell environment was invoked; otherwise, the
shell utility shall terminate. The wait status of the shell or subshell shall be determined by the unsigned
decimal integer n, if specified.

If n is specified and has a value between 0 and 255 inclusive, the wait status of the shell or subshell
shall indicate that it exited with exit status n. If n is specified and has a value greater than 256 that
corresponds to an exit status the shell assigns to commands terminated by a valid signal (see 2.8.2 Exit
Status for Commands), the wait status of the shell or subshell shall indicate that it was terminated by
that signal. No other actions associated with the signal, such as execution of trap actions or creation of
a core image, shall be performed by the shell.

If n is specified and is not an unsigned decimal integer, or has a value of 256, or has a value greater
than 256 but not corresponding to an exit status the shell assigns to commands terminated by a valid
signal, the wait status of the shell or subshell is unspecified.

If n is not specified, the result shall be as if n were specified with the current value of the special
parameter '?' (see 2.5.2 Special Parameters), except that if the exit command would cause the end of
execution of a trap action, the value for the special parameter '?' that is considered "current" shall be
the value it had immediately preceding the trap action.

A trap action on EXIT shall be executed before the shell terminates, except when the exit utility is
invoked in that trap action itself, in which case the shell shall exit immediately. It is unspecified whether
setting a new trap action on EXIT during execution of a trap action on EXIT will cause the new trap
action to be executed before the shell terminates.

OPTIONS

None.

OPERANDS

See the DESCRIPTION.

STDIN

Not used.

INPUT FILES

None.

ENVIRONMENT VARIABLES

None.

ASYNCHRONOUS EVENTS

Default.

STDOUT

Not used.

STDERR

The standard error shall be used only for diagnostic messages.

OUTPUT FILES

None.

EXTENDED DESCRIPTION

None.

EXIT STATUS

The exit utility causes the shell to exit from its current execution environment, and therefore does not
itself return an exit status.

CONSEQUENCES OF ERRORS

Default.

The following sections are informative.

APPLICATION USAGE

As explained in other sections, certain exit status values have been reserved for special uses and should
be used by applications only for those purposes:
 126
A file to be executed was found, but it was not an executable utility.
127
A utility to be executed was not found.
128
An unrecoverable read error was detected by the shell while reading commands, except from the
file operand of the dot special built-in.
>128
A command was interrupted by a signal.

EXAMPLES

Exit with a true value:

exit 0

Exit with a false value:

exit 1

Propagate error handling from within a subshell:

(
command1 || exit 1
command2 || exit 1
exec command3
) > outputfile || exit 1
echo "outputfile created successfully"

RATIONALE

The behavior of exit when given an invalid argument or unknown option is unspecified, because of
differing practices in the various historical implementations. A value larger than 255 might be truncated
by the shell, and be unavailable even to a parent process that uses waitid() to get the full exit value. It is
recommended that implementations that detect any usage error should cause a non-zero exit status
(or, if the shell is interactive and the error does not cause the shell to abort, store a non-zero value in
"$?"), but even this was not done historically in all shells.

See also C.2.8.2 Exit Status for Commands.

FUTURE DIRECTIONS

None.

SEE ALSO

2.15 Special Built-In Utilities

CHANGE HISTORY

Issue 6
 IEEE Std 1003.1-2001/Cor 1-2002, item XCU/TC1/D6/5 is applied so that the reference page sections use
terms as described in the Utility Description Defaults ( 1.4 Utility Description Defaults). No change in
behavior is intended.

Issue 7

POSIX.1-2008, Technical Corrigendum 2, XCU/TC2-2008/0047 [717], XCU/TC2-2008/0048 [960], XCU/TC2-

2008/0049 [717], and XCU/TC2-2008/0050 [960] are applied.

Issue 8

Austin Group Defect 51 is applied, specifying the behavior when n has a value greater than 256 that
corresponds to an exit status the shell assigns to commands terminated by a valid signal.

Austin Group Defect 1029 is applied, changing "trap" to "trap action" in the DESCRIPTION section.

Austin Group Defect 1309 is applied, changing the EXIT STATUS section.

Austin Group Defect 1425 is applied, clarifying the requirements for a trap action on EXIT.

Austin Group Defect 1602 is applied, clarifying the behavior of exit in a trap action.

Austin Group Defect 1629 is applied, adding exit status 128 to the APPLICATION USAGE section.

End of informative text.

<<< Previous Home Next >>>

NAME

export — set the export attribute for variables

SYNOPSIS

export name[=word]...

export -p

DESCRIPTION

The shell shall give the export attribute to the variables corresponding to the specified names, which
shall cause them to be in the environment of subsequently executed commands. If the name of a
variable is followed by =word, then the value of that variable shall be set to word.

The export special built-in shall be a declaration utility. Therefore, if export is recognized as the
command name of a simple command, then subsequent words of the form name=word shall be
expanded in an assignment context. See 2.9.1.1 Order of Processing.

The export special built-in shall support XBD 12.2 Utility Syntax Guidelines.

When -p is specified, export shall write to the standard output the names and values of all exported
variables, in the following format:
 "export %s=%s\n", <name>, <value>

if name is set, and:

"export %s\n", <name>

if name is unset.

The shell shall format the output, including the proper use of quoting, so that it is suitable for reinput
to the shell as commands that achieve the same exporting results, except:

1. Read-only variables with values cannot be reset.

2. Variables that were unset at the time they were output need not be reset to the unset state if a
value is assigned to the variable between the time the state was saved and the time at which the
saved output is reinput to the shell.

When no arguments are given, the results are unspecified.

OPTIONS

See the DESCRIPTION.

OPERANDS

See the DESCRIPTION.

STDIN

Not used.

INPUT FILES

None.

ENVIRONMENT VARIABLES

None.

ASYNCHRONOUS EVENTS

Default.

STDOUT

See the DESCRIPTION.

STDERR

The standard error shall be used only for diagnostic messages.

OUTPUT FILES

None.

EXTENDED DESCRIPTION

None.

EXIT STATUS

0
Successful completion.
>0
At least one operand could not be processed as requested, such as a name operand that could
not be exported or an attempt to modify a readonly variable using a name=word operand, or the -
p option was specified and a write error occurred.

CONSEQUENCES OF ERRORS

Default.

The following sections are informative.

APPLICATION USAGE

Note that, unless X was previously marked readonly, the value of "$?" after:

export X=$(false)

will be 0 (because export successfully set X to the empty string) and that execution continues, even if set
-e is in effect. In order to detect command substitution failures, a user must separate the assignment
from the export, as in:

X=$(false)
export X

In shells that support extended assignment syntax, for example to allow an array to be populated with
a single assignment, such extensions can typically only be used in assignments specified as arguments
to export if the command word is literally export, and not if it is some other word that expands to export.
For example:

# Shells that support array assignment as an extension generally

# support this:
export x=(1 2 3); echo ${x[0]} # outputs 1
# But generally do not support this:
e=export; $e x=(1 2 3); echo ${x[0]} # syntax error

EXAMPLES

Export PWD and HOME variables:

 export PWD HOME

Set and export the PATH variable:

export PATH="/local/bin:$PATH"

Save and restore all exported variables:

export -p > temp-file

unset a lot of variables

... processing

. ./temp-file

Note:
If LANG, LC_CTYPE or LC_ALL are left altered or unset in the above example prior to sourcing
temp-file, the results may be undefined.

RATIONALE

Some historical shells use the no-argument case as the functional equivalent of what is required here
with -p. This feature was left unspecified because it is not historical practice in all shells, and some
scripts may rely on the now-unspecified results on their implementations. Attempts to specify the -p
output as the default case were unsuccessful in achieving consensus. The -p option was added to allow
portable access to the values that can be saved and then later restored using; for example, a dot script.

Some implementations extend the shell's assignment syntax, for example to allow an array to be
populated with a single assignment, and in order for such an extension to be usable in assignments
specified as arguments to export these shells have export as a separate token in their grammar. This
standard only permits an extension of this nature when the input to the shell would contain a syntax
error according to the standard grammar. Note that although export can be a separate token in the
shell's grammar, it cannot be a reserved word since export is a candidate for alias substitution whereas
reserved words are not (see 2.3.1 Alias Substitution).

FUTURE DIRECTIONS

None.

SEE ALSO

2.9.1.1 Order of Processing, 2.15 Special Built-In Utilities

XBD 12.2 Utility Syntax Guidelines

CHANGE HISTORY

Issue 6

IEEE PASC Interpretation 1003.2 #203 is applied, clarifying the format when a variable is unset.

IEEE Std 1003.1-2001/Cor 1-2002, item XCU/TC1/D6/5 is applied so that the reference page sections use
terms as described in the Utility Description Defaults ( 1.4 Utility Description Defaults). No change in
 behavior is intended.

IEEE Std 1003.1-2001/Cor 1-2002, item XCU/TC1/D6/6 is applied, adding the following text to the end of
the first paragraph of the DESCRIPTION: "If the name of a variable is followed by =word, then the value
of that variable shall be set to word.". The reason for this change is that the SYNOPSIS for export
includes:

export name[=word]...

but the meaning of the optional "=word" is never explained in the text.

Issue 7

POSIX.1-2008, Technical Corrigendum 1, XCU/TC1-2008/0043 [352] is applied.

POSIX.1-2008, Technical Corrigendum 2, XCU/TC2-2008/0051 [654] and XCU/TC2-2008/0052 [960] are

applied.

Issue 8

Austin Group Defect 351 is applied, requiring export to be a declaration utility.

Austin Group Defect 367 is applied, changing the EXIT STATUS section.

Austin Group Defect 1258 is applied, changing the EXAMPLES section.

Austin Group Defect 1393 is applied, changing the APPLICATION USAGE and RATIONALE sections.

End of informative text.

<<< Previous Home Next >>>

NAME

readonly — set the readonly attribute for variables

SYNOPSIS

readonly name[=word]...

readonly -p

DESCRIPTION

The variables whose names are specified shall be given the readonly attribute. The values of variables
with the readonly attribute cannot be changed by subsequent assignment or use of the export, getopts,
readonly, or read utilities, nor can those variables be unset by the unset utility. As described in XBD 8.1
Environment Variable Definition, conforming applications shall not request to mark a variable as readonly
if it is documented as being manipulated by a shell built-in utility, as it may render those utilities unable
to complete successfully. If the name of a variable is followed by =word, then the value of that variable
shall be set to word.
 The readonly special built-in shall be a declaration utility. Therefore, if readonly is recognized as the
command name of a simple command, then subsequent words of the form name=word shall be
expanded in an assignment context. See 2.9.1.1 Order of Processing.

The readonly special built-in shall support XBD 12.2 Utility Syntax Guidelines.

When -p is specified, readonly writes to the standard output the names and values of all read-only
variables, in the following format:

"readonly %s=%s\n", <name>, <value>

if name is set, and

"readonly %s\n", <name>

if name is unset.

The shell shall format the output, including the proper use of quoting, so that it is suitable for reinput
to the shell as commands that achieve the same value and readonly attribute-setting results in a shell
execution environment in which:

1. Variables with values at the time they were output do not have the readonly attribute set.
2. Variables that were unset at the time they were output do not have a value at the time at which
the saved output is reinput to the shell.

When no arguments are given, the results are unspecified.

OPTIONS

See the DESCRIPTION.

OPERANDS

See the DESCRIPTION.

STDIN

Not used.

INPUT FILES

None.

ENVIRONMENT VARIABLES

None.

ASYNCHRONOUS EVENTS

Default.

STDOUT
 See the DESCRIPTION.

STDERR

The standard error shall be used only for diagnostic messages.

OUTPUT FILES

None.

EXTENDED DESCRIPTION

None.

EXIT STATUS

0
Successful completion.
>0
At least one operand could not be processed as requested, such as a name operand that could
not be marked readonly or an attempt to modify an already readonly variable using a name=word
operand, or the -p option was specified and a write error occurred.

CONSEQUENCES OF ERRORS

Default.

The following sections are informative.

APPLICATION USAGE

In shells that support extended assignment syntax, for example to allow an array to be populated with
a single assignment, such extensions can typically only be used in assignments specified as arguments
to readonly if the command word is literally readonly, and not if it is some other word that expands to
readonly. For example:

# Shells that support array assignment as an extension generally

# support this:
readonly x=(1 2 3); echo ${x[0]} # outputs 1
# But generally do not support this:
r=readonly; $r x=(1 2 3); echo ${x[0]} # syntax error

EXAMPLES

readonly HOME

RATIONALE
 Some historical shells preserve the readonly attribute across separate invocations. This volume of
POSIX.1-2024 allows this behavior, but does not require it.

The -p option allows portable access to the values that can be saved and then later restored using, for
example, a dot script. Also see the RATIONALE for export for a description of the no-argument and -p
output cases and a related example.

Read-only functions were considered, but they were omitted as not being historical practice or
particularly useful. Furthermore, functions must not be read-only across invocations to preclude
"spoofing" (spoofing is the term for the practice of creating a program that acts like a well-known utility
with the intent of subverting the real intent of the user) of administrative or security-relevant (or
security-conscious) shell scripts.

Attempts to set the readonly attribute on certain variables, such as PWD , may have surprising results.
Either readonly will reject the attempt, or the attempt will succeed but the shell will continue to alter the
contents of PWD during the cd utility, or the attempt will succeed and render the cd utility inoperative
(since it must not change directories if it cannot also update PWD ).

Some implementations extend the shell's assignment syntax, for example to allow an array to be
populated with a single assignment, and in order for such an extension to be usable in assignments
specified as arguments to readonly these shells have readonly as a separate token in their grammar. This
standard only permits an extension of this nature when the input to the shell would contain a syntax
error according to the standard grammar. Note that although readonly can be a separate token in the
shell's grammar, it cannot be a reserved word since readonly is a candidate for alias substitution
whereas reserved words are not (see 2.3.1 Alias Substitution).

FUTURE DIRECTIONS

None.

SEE ALSO

2.9.1.1 Order of Processing, 2.15 Special Built-In Utilities

XBD 12.2 Utility Syntax Guidelines

CHANGE HISTORY

Issue 6

IEEE PASC Interpretation 1003.2 #203 is applied, clarifying the format when a variable is unset.

IEEE Std 1003.1-2001/Cor 1-2002, item XCU/TC1/D6/5 is applied so that the reference page sections use
terms as described in the Utility Description Defaults ( 1.4 Utility Description Defaults). No change in
behavior is intended.

IEEE Std 1003.1-2001/Cor 1-2002, item XCU/TC1/D6/7 is applied, adding the following text to the end of
the first paragraph of the DESCRIPTION: "If the name of a variable is followed by =word, then the value
of that variable shall be set to word.". The reason for this change is that the SYNOPSIS for readonly
includes:

readonly name[=word]...

but the meaning of the optional "=word" is never explained in the text.
Issue 7

POSIX.1-2008, Technical Corrigendum 2, XCU/TC2-2008/0052 [960] is applied.

Issue 8

Austin Group Defect 351 is applied, requiring readonly to be a declaration utility.

Austin Group Defect 367 is applied, clarifying that the values of readonly variables cannot be changed
by subsequent use of the export, getopts, readonly, or read utilities, and changing the EXIT STATUS,
EXAMPLES and RATIONALE sections.

Austin Group Defect 1393 is applied, changing the APPLICATION USAGE and RATIONALE sections.

End of informative text.

<<< Previous Home Next >>>

NAME

return — return from a function or dot script

SYNOPSIS

return [n]

DESCRIPTION

The return utility shall cause the shell to stop executing the current function or dot script. If the shell is
not currently executing a function or dot script, the results are unspecified.

OPTIONS

None.

OPERANDS

See the DESCRIPTION.

STDIN

Not used.

INPUT FILES

None.

ENVIRONMENT VARIABLES
 None.

ASYNCHRONOUS EVENTS

Default.

STDOUT

Not used.

STDERR

The standard error shall be used only for diagnostic messages.

OUTPUT FILES

None.

EXTENDED DESCRIPTION

None.

EXIT STATUS

The exit status shall be n, if specified, except that the behavior is unspecified if n is not an unsigned
decimal integer or is greater than 255. If n is not specified, the result shall be as if n were specified with
the current value of the special parameter '?' (see 2.5.2 Special Parameters), except that if the return
command would cause the end of execution of a trap action, the value for the special parameter '?'
that is considered "current" shall be the value it had immediately preceding the trap action.

CONSEQUENCES OF ERRORS

Default.

The following sections are informative.

APPLICATION USAGE

None.

EXAMPLES

None.

RATIONALE

The behavior of return when not in a function or dot script differs between the System V shell and the
KornShell. In the System V shell this is an error, whereas in the KornShell, the effect is the same as exit.
 The results of returning a number greater than 255 are undefined because of differing practices in the
various historical implementations. Some shells AND out all but the low-order 8 bits; others allow larger
values, but not of unlimited size.

See the discussion of appropriate exit status values under exit.

FUTURE DIRECTIONS

None.

SEE ALSO

2.9.5 Function Definition Command, 2.15 Special Built-In Utilities, dot

CHANGE HISTORY

Issue 6

IEEE Std 1003.1-2001/Cor 1-2002, item XCU/TC1/D6/5 is applied so that the reference page sections use
terms as described in the Utility Description Defaults ( 1.4 Utility Description Defaults). No change in
behavior is intended.

Issue 7

POSIX.1-2008, Technical Corrigendum 1, XCU/TC1-2008/0044 [214] and XCU/TC1-2008/0045 [214] are

applied.

POSIX.1-2008, Technical Corrigendum 2, XCU/TC2-2008/0052 [960] is applied.

Issue 8

Austin Group Defect 1309 is applied, changing the EXIT STATUS section.

Austin Group Defect 1602 is applied, clarifying the behavior of return in a trap action.

End of informative text.

<<< Previous Home Next >>>

NAME

set — set or unset options and positional parameters

SYNOPSIS

set [-abCefhmnuvx] [-o option] [argument...]

set [+abCefhmnuvx] [+o option] [argument...]

set -- [argument...]
 set -o

set +o

DESCRIPTION

If no options or arguments are specified, set shall write the names and values of all shell variables in the
collation sequence of the current locale. Each name shall start on a separate line, using the format:

"%s=%s\n", <name>, <value>

The value string shall be written with appropriate quoting; see the description of shell quoting in 2.2
Quoting. The output shall be suitable for reinput to the shell, setting or resetting, as far as possible, the
variables that are currently set; read-only variables cannot be reset.

When options are specified, they shall set or unset attributes of the shell, as described below. When
arguments are specified, they cause positional parameters to be set or unset, as described below.
Setting or unsetting attributes and positional parameters are not necessarily related actions, but they
can be combined in a single invocation of set.

The set special built-in shall support XBD 12.2 Utility Syntax Guidelines except that options can be
specified with either a leading <hyphen-minus> (meaning enable the option) or <plus-sign> (meaning
disable it) unless otherwise specified.

Implementations shall support the options in the following list in both their <hyphen-minus> and <plus-
sign> forms. These options can also be specified as options to sh.

-a
Set the export attribute for all variable assignments. When this option is on, whenever a value is
assigned to a variable in the current shell execution environment, the export attribute shall be set
for the variable. This applies to all forms of assignment, including those made as a side-effect of
variable expansions or arithmetic expansions, and those made as a result of the operation of the
cd, getopts, or read utilities.
Note:
As discussed in 2.9.1 Simple Commands, not all variable assignments happen in the
current execution environment. When an assignment happens in a separate execution
environment the export attribute is still set for the variable, but that does not affect the
current execution environment.
-b
This option shall be supported if the implementation supports the User Portability Utilities
option. When job control and -b are both enabled, the shell shall write asynchronous notifications
of background job completions (including termination by a signal), and may write asynchronous
notifications of background job suspensions. See 2.11 Job Control for details. When job control is
disabled, the -b option shall have no effect. Asynchronous notification shall not be enabled by
default.
-C
(Uppercase C.) Prevent existing regular files from being overwritten by the shell's '>' redirection
operator (see 2.7.2 Redirecting Output); the ">|" redirection operator shall override this
noclobber option for an individual file.
-e
When this option is on, when any command fails (for any of the reasons listed in 2.8.1
Consequences of Shell Errors or by returning an exit status greater than zero), the shell
 immediately shall exit, as if by executing the exit special built-in utility with no arguments, with
the following exceptions:
1. The failure of any individual command in a multi-command pipeline, or of any subshell
environments in which command substitution was performed during word expansion,
shall not cause the shell to exit. Only the failure of the pipeline itself shall be considered.
2. The -e setting shall be ignored when executing the compound list following the while,
until, if, or elif reserved word, a pipeline beginning with the ! reserved word, or any
command of an AND-OR list other than the last.
3. If the exit status of a compound command other than a subshell command was the result
of a failure while -e was being ignored, then -e shall not apply to this command.

This requirement applies to the shell environment and each subshell environment separately. For
example, in:

set -e; (false; echo one) | cat; echo two

the false command causes the subshell to exit without executing echo one; however, echo two
is executed because the exit status of the pipeline (false; echo one) | cat is zero.

In

set -e; echo $(false; echo one) two

the false command causes the subshell in which the command substitution is performed to exit
without executing echo one; the exit status of the subshell is ignored and the shell then
executes the word-expanded command echo two.
-f
The shell shall disable pathname expansion.
-h
[OB] Setting this option may speed up PATH searches (see XBD 8. Environment Variables). This
option may be enabled by default.
-m
This option shall be supported if the implementation supports the User Portability Utilities
option. When this option is enabled, the shell shall perform job control actions as described in
2.11 Job Control. This option shall be enabled by default for interactive shells.
-n
The shell shall read commands but does not execute them; this can be used to check for shell
script syntax errors. Interactive shells and subshells of interactive shells, recursively, may ignore
this option.
-o
Write the current settings of the options to standard output in an unspecified format.
+o
Write the current option settings to standard output in a format that is suitable for reinput to the
shell as commands that achieve the same options settings.
-o option

Set various options, many of which shall be equivalent to the single option letters. The following
values of option shall be supported:
allexport
Equivalent to -a.
errexit
Equivalent to -e.
ignoreeof
Prevent an interactive shell from exiting on end-of-file. This setting prevents accidental
logouts when <control>-D is entered. A user shall explicitly exit to leave the interactive
 shell. This option shall be supported if the system supports the User Portability Utilities
option.
monitor
Equivalent to -m. This option shall be supported if the system supports the User Portability
Utilities option.
noclobber
Equivalent to -C (uppercase C).
noglob
Equivalent to -f.
noexec
Equivalent to -n.
nolog
[OB] Prevent the entry of function definitions into the command history; see Command
History List. This option may have no effect; it is kept for compatibility with previous
versions of the standard. This option shall be supported if the system supports the User
Portability Utilities option.
notify
Equivalent to -b.
nounset
Equivalent to -u.
pipefail
Derive the exit status of a pipeline from the exit statuses of all of the commands in the
pipeline, not just the last (rightmost) command, as described in 2.9.2 Pipelines.
verbose
Equivalent to -v.
vi
Allow shell command line editing using the built-in vi editor. Enabling vi mode shall disable
any other command line editing mode provided as an implementation extension. This
option shall be supported if the system supports the User Portability Utilities option.

It need not be possible to set vi mode on for certain block-mode terminals.

xtrace
Equivalent to -x.
-u
When the shell tries to expand, in a parameter expansion or an arithmetic expansion, an unset
parameter other than the '@' and '*' special parameters, it shall write a message to standard
error and the expansion shall fail with the consequences specified in 2.8.1 Consequences of Shell
Errors.
-v
The shell shall write its input to standard error as it is read.
-x
The shell shall write to standard error a trace for each command after it expands the command
and before it executes it. It is unspecified whether the command that turns tracing off is traced.

The default for all these options shall be off (unset) unless stated otherwise in the description of the
option or unless the shell was invoked with them on; see sh.

The remaining arguments shall be assigned in order to the positional parameters. The special
parameter '#' shall be set to reflect the number of positional parameters. All positional parameters
shall be unset before any new values are assigned.

If the first argument is '-', the results are unspecified.

 The special argument "--" immediately following the set command name can be used to delimit the
arguments if the first argument begins with '+' or '-', or to prevent inadvertent listing of all shell
variables when there are no arguments. The command set -- without argument shall unset all positional
parameters and set the special parameter '#' to zero.

OPTIONS

See the DESCRIPTION.

OPERANDS

See the DESCRIPTION.

STDIN

Not used.

INPUT FILES

None.

ENVIRONMENT VARIABLES

None.

ASYNCHRONOUS EVENTS

Default.

STDOUT

See the DESCRIPTION.

STDERR

The standard error shall be used only for diagnostic messages.

OUTPUT FILES

None.

EXTENDED DESCRIPTION

None.

EXIT STATUS

0
 Successful completion.
>0
An invalid option was specified, or an error occurred.

CONSEQUENCES OF ERRORS

Default.

The following sections are informative.

APPLICATION USAGE

Application writers should avoid relying on set -e within functions. For example, in the following script:

set -e
start() {
some_server
echo some_server started successfully
}
start || echo >&2 some_server failed

the -e setting is ignored within the function body (because the function is a command in an AND-OR list
other than the last). Therefore, if some_server fails, the function carries on to echo "some_server
started successfully", and the exit status of the function is zero (which means "some_server
failed" is not output).

Use of set -n causes the shell to parse the rest of the script without executing any commands, meaning
that set +n cannot be used to undo the effect. Syntax checking is more commonly done via sh -n
script_name.

EXAMPLES

Write out all variables and their values:

set

Set $1, $2, and $3 and set "$#" to 3:

set c a b

Turn on the -x and -v options:

set -xv

Unset all positional parameters:

set --

Set $1 to the value of x, even if it begins with '-' or '+':

set -- "$x"

Set the positional parameters to the expansion of x, even if x expands with a leading '-' or '+':
 set -- $x

RATIONALE

The set -- form is listed specifically in the SYNOPSIS even though this usage is implied by the Utility
Syntax Guidelines. The explanation of this feature removes any ambiguity about whether the set -- form
might be misinterpreted as being equivalent to set without any options or arguments. The functionality
of this form has been adopted from the KornShell. In System V, set -- only unsets parameters if there is
at least one argument; the only way to unset all parameters is to use shift. Using the KornShell version
should not affect System V scripts because there should be no reason to issue it without arguments
deliberately; if it were issued as, for example:

set -- "$@"

and there were in fact no arguments resulting from "$@", unsetting the parameters would have no
result.

The set + form in early proposals was omitted as being an unnecessary duplication of set alone and not
widespread historical practice.

The noclobber option was changed to allow set -C as well as the set -o noclobber option. The single-letter
version was added so that the historical "$-" paradigm would not be broken; see 2.5.2 Special
Parameters.

The description of the -e option is intended to match the behavior of the 1988 version of the KornShell.

The -h option is related to command name hashing. See hash. The normative description is deliberately
vague because the way this option works varies between shell implementations.

Earlier versions of this standard specified -h as a way to locate and remember utilities to be invoked by
functions as those functions are defined (the utilities are normally located when the function is
executed). However, this did not match existing practice in most shells.

The following set options were omitted intentionally with the following rationale:

-k
The -k option was originally added by the author of the Bourne shell to make it easier for users of
pre-release versions of the shell. In early versions of the Bourne shell the construct set
name=value had to be used to assign values to shell variables. The problem with -k is that the
behavior affects parsing, virtually precluding writing any compilers. To explain the behavior of -k,
it is necessary to describe the parsing algorithm, which is implementation-defined. For example:

set -k; echo name=value

and:

set -k
echo name=value

behave differently. The interaction with functions is even more complex. What is more, the -k
option is never needed, since the command line could have been reordered.

-t
The -t option is hard to specify and almost never used. The only known use could be done with
here-documents. Moreover, the behavior with ksh and sh differs. The reference page says that it
 exits after reading and executing one command. What is one command? If the input is date;date,
sh executes both date commands while ksh does only the first.

Consideration was given to rewriting set to simplify its confusing syntax. A specific suggestion was that
the unset utility should be used to unset options instead of using the non-getopt()-able +option syntax.
However, the conclusion was reached that the historical practice of using +option was satisfactory and
that there was no compelling reason to modify such widespread historical practice.

The -o option was adopted from the KornShell to address user needs. In addition to its generally
friendly interface, -o is needed to provide the vi command line editing mode, for which historical
practice yields no single-letter option name. (Although it might have been possible to invent such a
letter, it was recognized that other editing modes would be developed and -o provides ample name
space for describing such extensions.)

Historical implementations are inconsistent in the format used for -o option status reporting. The +o
format without an option-argument was added to allow portable access to the options that can be
saved and then later restored using, for instance, a dot script.

Historically, sh did trace the command set +x, but ksh did not.

The ignoreeof setting prevents accidental logouts when the end-of-file character (typically <control>-D)
is entered. A user shall explicitly exit to leave the interactive shell.

The set -m option was added to apply only to the UPE because it applies primarily to interactive use, not
shell script applications.

The ability to do asynchronous notification became available in the 1988 version of the KornShell. To
have it occur, the user had to issue the command:

trap "jobs -n" CLD

The C shell provides two different levels of an asynchronous notification capability. The environment
variable notify is analogous to what is done in set -b or set -o notify. When set, it notifies the user
immediately of background job completions. When unset, this capability is turned off.

The other notification ability comes through the built-in utility notify. The syntax is:

notify [%job ... ]

By issuing notify with no operands, it causes the C shell to notify the user asynchronously when the
state of the current job changes. If given operands, notify asynchronously informs the user of changes
in the states of the specified jobs.

To add asynchronous notification to the POSIX shell, neither the KornShell extensions to trap, nor the C
shell notify environment variable seemed appropriate (notify is not a proper POSIX environment variable
name).

The set -b option was selected as a compromise.

The notify built-in was considered to have more functionality than was required for simple
asynchronous notification.

Historically, some shells applied the -u option to all parameters including $@ and $*. The standard
developers felt that this was a misfeature since it is normal and common for $@ and $* to be used in
shell scripts regardless of whether they were passed any arguments. Treating these uses as an error
when no arguments are passed reduces the value of -u for its intended purpose of finding spelling
mistakes in variable names and uses of unset positional parameters.
FUTURE DIRECTIONS

A future version of this standard may remove the -o nolog option.

SEE ALSO

2.15 Special Built-In Utilities, hash

XBD 4.26 Variable Assignment, 12.2 Utility Syntax Guidelines

CHANGE HISTORY

Issue 6

The obsolescent set command name followed by '-' has been removed.

The following new requirements on POSIX implementations derive from alignment with the Single UNIX
Specification:

The nolog option is added to set -o.

IEEE PASC Interpretation 1003.2 #167 is applied, clarifying that the options default also takes into
account the description of the option.

IEEE Std 1003.1-2001/Cor 1-2002, item XCU/TC1/D6/5 is applied so that the reference page sections use
terms as described in the Utility Description Defaults ( 1.4 Utility Description Defaults). No change in
behavior is intended.

IEEE Std 1003.1-2001/Cor 1-2002, item XCU/TC1/D6/8 is applied, changing the square brackets in the
example in RATIONALE to be in bold, which is the typeface used for optional items.

Issue 7

Austin Group Interpretation 1003.1-2001 #027 is applied, clarifying the behavior if the first argument is
'-'.

SD5-XCU-ERN-97 is applied, updating the SYNOPSIS.

XSI shading is removed from the -h functionality.

POSIX.1-2008, Technical Corrigendum 1, XCU/TC1-2008/0046 [52], XCU/TC1-2008/0047 [155,280],

XCU/TC1-2008/0048 [52], XCU/TC1-2008/0049 [52], and XCU/TC1-2008/0050 [155,430] are applied.

POSIX.1-2008, Technical Corrigendum 2, XCU/TC2-2008/0053 [584], XCU/TC2-2008/0054 [717], XCU/TC2-

2008/0055 [717], and XCU/TC2-2008/0056 [960] are applied.

Issue 8

Austin Group Defect 559 is applied, changing the description of the -u option.

Austin Group Defect 789 is applied, adding -o pipefail.

Austin Group Defect 981 is applied, changing the description of the -o nolog option and the FUTURE
DIRECTIONS section.
 Austin Group Defects 1009 and 1555 are applied, changing the description of the -a option.

Austin Group Defect 1016 is applied, changing the description of the -C option.

Austin Group Defect 1055 is applied, adding a paragraph about the -n option to the APPLICATION
USAGE section.

Austin Group Defect 1063 is applied, changing the description of the -h option.

Austin Group Defect 1150 is applied, changing the description of the -e option.

Austin Group Defect 1207 is applied, clarifying which option-arguments of the -o option are related to
the User Portability Utilities option.

Austin Group Defect 1254 is applied, changing the descriptions of the -b and -m options.

Austin Group Defect 1384 is applied, allowing subshells of interactive shells to ignore the -n option.

End of informative text.

<<< Previous Home Next >>>

NAME

shift — shift positional parameters

SYNOPSIS

shift [n]

DESCRIPTION

The positional parameters shall be shifted. Positional parameter 1 shall be assigned the value of
parameter (1+n), parameter 2 shall be assigned the value of parameter (2+n), and so on. The
parameters represented by the numbers "$#" down to "$#-n+1" shall be unset, and the parameter
'#' is updated to reflect the new number of positional parameters.

The value n shall be an unsigned decimal integer less than or equal to the value of the special
parameter '#'. If n is not given, it shall be assumed to be 1. If n is 0, the positional and special
parameters are not changed.

OPTIONS

None.

OPERANDS

See the DESCRIPTION.

STDIN

Not used.
INPUT FILES

None.

ENVIRONMENT VARIABLES

None.

ASYNCHRONOUS EVENTS

Default.

STDOUT

Not used.

STDERR

The standard error shall be used only for diagnostic messages and the warning message specified in
EXIT STATUS.

OUTPUT FILES

None.

EXTENDED DESCRIPTION

None.

EXIT STATUS

If the n operand is invalid or is greater than "$#", this may be treated as an error and a non-interactive
shell may exit; if the shell does not exit in this case, a non-zero exit status shall be returned and a
warning message shall be written to standard error. Otherwise, zero shall be returned.

CONSEQUENCES OF ERRORS

Default.

The following sections are informative.

APPLICATION USAGE

None.

EXAMPLES
 $
set a b c d e

$
shift 2

$
echo $*

c d e

RATIONALE

None.

FUTURE DIRECTIONS

None.

SEE ALSO

2.15 Special Built-In Utilities

CHANGE HISTORY

Issue 6

IEEE Std 1003.1-2001/Cor 1-2002, item XCU/TC1/D6/5 is applied so that the reference page sections use
terms as described in the Utility Description Defaults ( 1.4 Utility Description Defaults). No change in
behavior is intended.

Issue 7

POSIX.1-2008, Technical Corrigendum 1, XCU/TC1-2008/0051 [459] is applied.

Issue 8

Austin Group Defect 1265 is applied, updating the EXIT STATUS and STDERR sections to align with the
changes made to 2.8.1 Consequences of Shell Errors between Issue 6 and Issue 7.

End of informative text.

<<< Previous Home Next >>>

NAME

times — write process times

SYNOPSIS

times

DESCRIPTION

The times utility shall write the accumulated user and system times for the shell and for all of its child
processes, in the following POSIX locale format:

"%dm%fs %dm%fs\n%dm%fs %dm%fs\n", <shell user minutes>,

<shell user seconds>, <shell system minutes>,
<shell system seconds>, <children user minutes>,
<children user seconds>, <children system minutes>,
<children system seconds>

The four pairs of times shall correspond to the members of the <sys/times.h> tms structure (defined in
XBD 14. Headers) as returned by times(): tms_utime, tms_stime, tms_cutime, and tms_cstime, respectively.

OPTIONS

None.

OPERANDS

None.

STDIN

Not used.

INPUT FILES

None.

ENVIRONMENT VARIABLES

None.

ASYNCHRONOUS EVENTS

Default.

STDOUT

See the DESCRIPTION.

STDERR
 The standard error shall be used only for diagnostic messages.

OUTPUT FILES

None.

EXTENDED DESCRIPTION

None.

EXIT STATUS

0
Successful completion.
>0
An error occurred.

CONSEQUENCES OF ERRORS

Default.

The following sections are informative.

APPLICATION USAGE

None.

EXAMPLES

$
times

0m0.43s 0m1.11s
8m44.18s 1m43.23s

RATIONALE

The times special built-in from the Single UNIX Specification is now required for all conforming shells.

FUTURE DIRECTIONS

None.

SEE ALSO

2.15 Special Built-In Utilities

 XBD <sys/times.h>

CHANGE HISTORY

Issue 6

IEEE Std 1003.1-2001/Cor 1-2002, item XCU/TC1/D6/9 is applied, changing text in the DESCRIPTION
from: "Write the accumulated user and system times for the shell and for all of its child processes ..." to:
"The times utility shall write the accumulated user and system times for the shell and for all of its child
processes ...".

Issue 7

POSIX.1-2008, Technical Corrigendum 2, XCU/TC2-2008/0056 [960] is applied.

End of informative text.

<<< Previous Home Next >>>

NAME

trap — trap signals

SYNOPSIS

trap n [condition...]

trap -p [condition...]

trap [action condition...]

DESCRIPTION

If the -p option is not specified and the first operand is an unsigned decimal integer, the shell shall treat
all operands as conditions, and shall reset each condition to the default value. Otherwise, if the -p
option is not specified and there are operands, the first operand shall be treated as an action and the
remaining as conditions.

If action is '-', the shell shall reset each condition to the default value. If action is null (""), the shell
shall ignore each specified condition if it arises. Otherwise, the argument action shall be read and
executed by the shell when one of the corresponding conditions arises. The action of trap shall override
a previous action (either default action or one explicitly set). The value of "$?" after the trap action
completes shall be the value it had before the trap action was executed.

The condition can be EXIT, 0 (equivalent to EXIT), or a signal specified using a symbolic name, without
the SIG prefix, as listed in the tables of signal names in the <signal.h> header defined in XBD 14.
Headers; for example, HUP, INT, QUIT, TERM. Implementations may permit names with the SIG prefix or
ignore case in signal names as an extension. Setting a trap for SIGKILL or SIGSTOP produces undefined
results.
The EXIT condition shall occur when the shell terminates normally (exits), and may occur when the shell
terminates abnormally as a result of delivery of a signal (other than SIGKILL) whose trap action is the
default.

The environment in which the shell executes a trap action on EXIT shall be identical to the environment
immediately after the last command executed before the trap action on EXIT was executed.

If action is neither '-' nor the empty string, then each time a matching condition arises, the action shall
be executed in a manner equivalent to:

eval action

Signals that were ignored on entry to a non-interactive shell cannot be trapped or reset, although no
error need be reported when attempting to do so. An interactive shell may reset or catch signals
ignored on entry. Traps shall remain in place for a given shell until explicitly changed with another trap
command.

When a subshell is entered, traps that are not being ignored shall be set to the default actions, except
in the case of a command substitution containing only a single trap command, when the traps need not
be altered. Implementations may check for this case using only lexical analysis; for example, if `trap`
and $( trap -- ) do not alter the traps in the subshell, cases such as assigning var=trap and then
using $($var) may still alter them. This does not imply that the trap command cannot be used within
the subshell to set new traps.

The trap command with no operands shall write to standard output a list of commands associated with
each of a set of conditions; if the -p option is not specified, this set shall contain only the conditions that
are not in the default state (including signals that were ignored on entry to a non-interactive shell); if
the -p option is specified, the set shall contain all conditions, except that it is unspecified whether
conditions corresponding to the SIGKILL and SIGSTOP signals are included in the set. If the command is
executed in a subshell, the implementation does not perform the optional check described above for a
command substitution containing only a single trap command, and no trap commands with operands
have been executed since entry to the subshell, the list shall contain the commands that were
associated with each condition immediately before the subshell environment was entered. Otherwise,
the list shall contain the commands currently associated with each condition. The format shall be:

"trap -- %s %s ...\n", <action>, <condition> ...

The shell shall format the output, including the proper use of quoting, so that it is suitable for reinput
to the shell as commands that achieve the same trapping results for the set of conditions included in
the output, except for signals that were ignored on entry to the shell as described above. If this set
includes conditions corresponding to the SIGKILL and SIGSTOP signals, the shell shall accept them
when the output is reinput to the shell (where accepting them means they do not cause a non-zero exit
status, a diagnostic message, or undefined behavior). For example:

save_traps=$(trap -p)

...
eval "$save_traps"

or:

save_traps=$(trap -p INT QUIT)

trap "some command" INT QUIT
 ...

eval "$save_traps"

[XSI] XSI-conformant systems also allow numeric signal numbers for the conditions corresponding to
the following signal names:

1
SIGHUP
2
SIGINT
3
SIGQUIT
6
SIGABRT
9
SIGKILL
14
SIGALRM
15
SIGTERM

If an invalid signal name [XSI] or number is specified, the trap utility shall write a warning
message to standard error.

The trap special built-in shall conform to XBD 12.2 Utility Syntax Guidelines.

OPTIONS

The following option shall be supported:

-p
Write to standard output a list of commands associated with each condition operand. The
behavior when there are no operands is specified in the DESCRIPTION section.

The shell shall format the output, including the proper use of quoting, so that it is suitable for
reinput to the shell as commands that achieve the same trapping results for the specified set of
conditions. If a condition operand is a condition corresponding to the SIGKILL or SIGSTOP signal,
and trap -p without any operands would not include it in the set of conditions for which it writes
output, the behavior is undefined if the output is reinput to the shell.

OPERANDS

See the DESCRIPTION.

STDIN

Not used.

INPUT FILES
 None.

ENVIRONMENT VARIABLES

None.

ASYNCHRONOUS EVENTS

Default.

STDOUT

See the DESCRIPTION.

STDERR

The standard error shall be used only for diagnostic messages and warning messages about invalid
signal names [XSI] or numbers.

OUTPUT FILES

None.

EXTENDED DESCRIPTION

None.

EXIT STATUS

If the trap name [XSI] or number is invalid, a non-zero exit status shall be returned; otherwise,
zero shall be returned. For both interactive and non-interactive shells, invalid signal names [XSI] or
numbers shall not be considered an error and shall not cause the shell to abort.

CONSEQUENCES OF ERRORS

Default.

The following sections are informative.

APPLICATION USAGE

When the -p option is not used, since trap with no operands does not output commands to restore
traps that are currently set to default, these need to be restored separately. The RATIONALE section
shows examples and describes their drawbacks.

EXAMPLES
 Write out a list of all traps and actions:

trap

Set a trap so the logout utility in the directory referred to by the HOME environment variable executes
when the shell terminates:

trap '"$HOME"/logout' EXIT

or:

trap '"$HOME"/logout' 0

Unset traps on INT, QUIT, TERM, and EXIT:

trap - INT QUIT TERM EXIT

RATIONALE

Implementations may permit lowercase signal names as an extension. Implementations may also
accept the names with the SIG prefix; no known historical shell does so. The trap and kill utilities in this
volume of POSIX.1-2024 are now consistent in their omission of the SIG prefix for signal names. Some
kill implementations do not allow the prefix, and kill -l lists the signals without prefixes.

Trapping SIGKILL or SIGSTOP is syntactically accepted by some historical implementations, but it has no
effect. Portable POSIX applications cannot attempt to trap these signals.

The output format is not historical practice. Since the output of historical trap commands is not
portable (because numeric signal values are not portable) and had to change to become so, an
opportunity was taken to format the output in a way that a shell script could use to save and then later
reuse a trap if it wanted.

The KornShell uses an ERR trap that is triggered whenever set -e would cause an exit. This is allowable
as an extension, but was not mandated, as other shells have not used it.

The text about the environment for the EXIT trap invalidates the behavior of some historical versions of
interactive shells which, for example, close the standard input before executing a trap on 0. For
example, in some historical interactive shell sessions the following trap on 0 would always print "--":

trap 'read foo; echo "-$foo-"' 0

The command:

trap 'eval " $cmd"' 0

causes the contents of the shell variable cmd to be executed as a command when the shell exits. Using:

trap '$cmd' 0

does not work correctly if cmd contains any special characters such as quoting or redirections. Using:

trap " $cmd" 0

also works (the leading <space> character protects against unlikely cases where cmd is a decimal
integer or begins with '-'), but it expands the cmd variable when the trap command is executed, not
when the exit action is executed.
 The -p option was added because without it the method used to restore traps needs to include special
handling of traps that are set to default when trap with no operands is used to save the current traps.
One example is:

save_traps=$(trap)
trap "some command" INT QUIT
save_traps="trap - INT QUIT; $save_traps"

...

eval "$save_traps"

but this method relies on hard-coding the commands to reset the traps that are being set. It also has a
race condition if INT or QUIT was not set to default when saved, since it first sets them to default and
then restores the saved traps. A more general approach would be:

save_traps=$(trap)
...
for sig in EXIT $( kill -l )
do
case "$sig" in
SIGKILL | KILL | sigkill | kill | SIGSTOP | STOP | sigstop | stop)
;;
*) trap - $sig
;;
esac
done
eval "$save_traps"

This has the same race condition since it first sets all traps (that can be set) to default and then restores
those that were not previously set to default.

Historically, some shells behaved the same with and without -p when there are no operands. This
standard requires that the set of conditions differs between the two cases: with -p it is all conditions
(except possibly SIGKILL and SIGSTOP); without -p it is only the conditions that are not in the default
state.

FUTURE DIRECTIONS

None.

SEE ALSO

2.15 Special Built-In Utilities

XBD 12.2 Utility Syntax Guidelines, <signal.h>

CHANGE HISTORY

Issue 6
 XSI-conforming implementations provide the mapping of signal names to numbers given above
(previously this had been marked obsolescent). Other implementations need not provide this optional
mapping.

IEEE Std 1003.1-2001/Cor 1-2002, item XCU/TC1/D6/5 is applied so that the reference page sections use
terms as described in the Utility Description Defaults ( 1.4 Utility Description Defaults). No change in
behavior is intended.

Issue 7

SD5-XCU-ERN-97 is applied, updating the SYNOPSIS.

Austin Group Interpretation 1003.1-2001 #116 is applied.

POSIX.1-2008, Technical Corrigendum 1, XCU/TC1-2008/0052 [53,268,440], XCU/TC1-2008/0053

[53,268,440], XCU/TC1-2008/0054 [163], XCU/TC1-2008/0055 [163], and XCU/TC1-2008/0056 [163] are
applied.

Issue 8

Austin Group Defect 621 is applied, clarifying when the EXIT condition occurs.

Austin Group Defect 1029 is applied, clarifying the execution of trap actions.

Austin Group Defects 1211 and 1212 are applied, adding the -p option and clarifying that, when -p is
not specified, the output of trap with no operands does not list conditions that are in the default state.

Austin Group Defect 1265 is applied, updating the DESCRIPTION, STDERR and EXIT STATUS sections to
align with the changes made to 2.8.1 Consequences of Shell Errors between Issue 6 and Issue 7.

Austin Group Defect 1285 is applied, inserting a blank line between the two SYNOPSIS lines.

End of informative text.

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NAME

unset — unset values and attributes of variables and functions

SYNOPSIS

unset [-fv] name...

DESCRIPTION

The unset utility shall unset each variable or function definition specified by name that does not have
the readonly attribute and remove any attributes other than readonly that have been given to name (see
2.15 Special Built-In Utilities export and readonly).

If -v is specified, name refers to a variable name and the shell shall unset it and remove it from the
environment. Read-only variables cannot be unset.
 If -f is specified, name refers to a function and the shell shall unset the function definition.

If neither -f nor -v is specified, name refers to a variable; if a variable by that name does not exist, it is
unspecified whether a function by that name, if any, shall be unset.

Unsetting a variable or function that was not previously set shall not be considered an error and does
not cause the shell to abort.

The unset special built-in shall support XBD 12.2 Utility Syntax Guidelines.

Note that:

VARIABLE=

is not equivalent to an unset of VARIABLE; in the example, VARIABLE is set to "". Also, the variables
that can be unset should not be misinterpreted to include the special parameters (see 2.5.2 Special
Parameters).

OPTIONS

See the DESCRIPTION.

OPERANDS

See the DESCRIPTION.

STDIN

Not used.

INPUT FILES

None.

ENVIRONMENT VARIABLES

None.

ASYNCHRONOUS EVENTS

Default.

STDOUT

Not used.

STDERR

The standard error shall be used only for diagnostic messages.

OUTPUT FILES

None.

EXTENDED DESCRIPTION

None.

EXIT STATUS

0
All name operands were successfully unset.
>0
At least one name could not be unset.

CONSEQUENCES OF ERRORS

Default.

The following sections are informative.

APPLICATION USAGE

None.

EXAMPLES

Unset VISUAL variable:

unset -v VISUAL

Unset the functions foo and bar:

unset -f foo bar

RATIONALE

Consideration was given to omitting the -f option in favor of an unfunction utility, but the standard
developers decided to retain historical practice.

The -v option was introduced because System V historically used one name space for both variables
and functions. When unset is used without options, System V historically unset either a function or a
variable, and there was no confusion about which one was intended. A portable POSIX application can
use unset without an option to unset a variable, but not a function; the -f option must be used.

FUTURE DIRECTIONS

None.
SEE ALSO

2.15 Special Built-In Utilities

XBD 12.2 Utility Syntax Guidelines

CHANGE HISTORY

Issue 6

IEEE Std 1003.1-2001/Cor 1-2002, item XCU/TC1/D6/5 is applied so that the reference page sections use
terms as described in the Utility Description Defaults ( 1.4 Utility Description Defaults). No change in
behavior is intended.

Issue 7

SD5-XCU-ERN-97 is applied, updating the SYNOPSIS.

Issue 8

Austin Group Defect 1075 is applied, clarifying that unset removes attributes, other than readonly, from
the variables it unsets.

End of informative text.

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