Learning the bash Shell, Second Edition

Appendix B. Reference Lists

Invocation

Table 2.1 and Table 2.2 list the options you can use when invoking bash 2.x and 1.x, respectively. ^[144]The multicharacter options must appear on the command line before the single-character options. In addition to these, any set option can be used on the command line; see Table 2.6. Login shells are usually invoked with the options -i (interactive), -s (read from standard input), and -m (enable job control).

Table B-1. Command-Line Options

Option	Meaning
-c string	Commands are read from string, if present. Any arguments after string are interpreted as positional parameters, starting with $0.
-D	A list of all double-quoted strings preceded by $ is printed on the standard ouput. These are the strings that are subject to language translation when the current locale is not C or POSIX. This also turns on the -n option.
-i	Interactive shell. Ignore signals TERM, INT, and QUIT. With job control in effect, TTIN, TTOU, and TSTP are also ignored.
-o option	Takes the same arguments as set -o.
-s	Read commands from the standard input. If an argument is given to bash, this flag takes precedence (i.e., the argument won’t be treated as a script name and standard input will be read).
-r	Restricted shell. See Chapter 10.
-	Signals the end of options and disables further option processing. Any options after this are treated as filenames and arguments. -- is synonymous with -.
--dump-strings	Does the same as -D.
--help