Invoking Bash

bash [long-opt] [-ir] [-abefhkmnptuvxdBCDHP] [-o option] [argument ...]
bash [long-opt] [-abefhkmnptuvxdBCDHP] [-o option] -c string [argument ...]
bash [long-opt] -s [-abefhkmnptuvxdBCDHP] [-o option] [argument ...]

In addition to the single-character shell command-line options (see section The Set Builtin), there are several multi-character options that you can use. These options must appear on the command line before the single-character options in order for them to be recognized.

--dump-po-strings

Equivalent to `-D', but the output is in the GNU gettext PO (portable object) file format.

--dump-strings

Equivalent to `-D'.

--help

Display a usage message on standard output and exit sucessfully.

--login

Make this shell act as if it were directly invoked by login. This is equivalent to `exec -l bash' but can be issued from another shell, such as csh. `exec bash --login' will replace the current shell with a Bash login shell.

--noediting

Do not use the GNU Readline library (see section Command Line Editing) to read interactive command lines.

--noprofile

Don't load the system-wide startup file `/etc/profile' or any of the personal initialization files `~/.bash_profile', `~/.bash_login', or `~/.profile' when Bash is invoked as a login shell.

--norc

Don't read the `~/.bashrc' initialization file in an interactive shell. This is on by default if the shell is invoked as sh.

--posix

Change the behavior of Bash where the default operation differs from the POSIX 1003.2 standard to match the standard. This is intended to make Bash behave as a strict superset of that standard. See section Bash POSIX Mode, for a description of the Bash POSIX mode.

--rcfile filename

Execute commands from filename (instead of `~/.bashrc') in an interactive shell.

--restricted

Make the shell a restricted shell (see section The Restricted Shell).

--verbose

Equivalent to `-v'.

--version

Show version information for this instance of Bash on the standard output and exit successfully.

There are several single-character options that may be supplied at invocation which are not available with the set builtin.

-c string

Read and execute commands from string after processing the options, then exit. Any remaining arguments are assigned to the positional parameters, starting with $0.

-i

Force the shell to run interactively.

-r

Make the shell a restricted shell (see section The Restricted Shell).

-s

If this option is present, or if no arguments remain after option processing, then commands are read from the standard input. This option allows the positional parameters to be set when invoking an interactive shell.

-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 (see section Locale-Specific Translation). This implies the `-n' option; no commands will be executed.

--

A -- signals the end of options and disables further option processing. Any arguments after the -- are treated as filenames and arguments.

An interactive shell is one whose input and output are both connected to terminals (as determined by isatty(3)), or one started with the `-i' option.

If arguments remain after option processing, and neither the `-c' nor the `-s' option has been supplied, the first argument is assumed to be the name of a file containing shell commands (see section Shell Scripts). When Bash is invoked in this fashion, $0 is set to the name of the file, and the positional parameters are set to the remaining arguments. Bash reads and executes commands from this file, then exits. Bash's exit status is the exit status of the last command executed in the script. If no commands are executed, the exit status is 0.

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