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The shell treats several parameters specially. These parameters may only be referenced; assignment to them is not allowed.
*
($*) Expands to the positional parameters, starting from one.
When the expansion is not within double quotes, each positional parameter
expands to a separate word.
In contexts where it is performed, those words
are subject to further word splitting and pathname expansion.
When the expansion occurs within double quotes, it expands to a single word
with the value of each parameter separated by the first character
of the IFS
special variable. That is, "$*"
is equivalent
to "$1c$2c…"
, where c
is the first character of the value of the IFS
variable.
If IFS
is unset, the parameters are separated by spaces.
If IFS
is null, the parameters are joined without intervening
separators.
@
($@) Expands to the positional parameters, starting from one. When the
expansion occurs within double quotes, each parameter expands to a
separate word. That is, "$@"
is equivalent to
"$1" "$2" …
.
If the double-quoted expansion occurs within a word, the expansion of
the first parameter is joined with the beginning part of the original
word, and the expansion of the last parameter is joined with the last
part of the original word.
When there are no positional parameters, "$@"
and
$@
expand to nothing (i.e., they are removed).
#
($#) Expands to the number of positional parameters in decimal.
?
($?) Expands to the exit status of the most recently executed foreground pipeline.
-
($-, a hyphen.) Expands to the current option flags as specified upon
invocation, by the set
builtin command, or those set by the shell itself
(such as the -i option).
$
($$) Expands to the process ID of the shell. In a ()
subshell, it
expands to the process ID of the invoking shell, not the subshell.
!
($!) Expands to the process ID of the job most recently placed into the
background, whether executed as an asynchronous command or using
the bg
builtin (see Job Control Builtins).
0
($0) Expands to the name of the shell or shell script. This is set at
shell initialization. If Bash is invoked with a file of commands
(see Shell Scripts), $0
is set to the name of that file.
If Bash is started with the -c option (see Invoking Bash),
then $0
is set to the first argument after the string to be
executed, if one is present. Otherwise, it is set
to the filename used to invoke Bash, as given by argument zero.
_
($_, an underscore.) At shell startup, set to the absolute pathname used to invoke the shell or shell script being executed as passed in the environment or argument list. Subsequently, expands to the last argument to the previous command, after expansion. Also set to the full pathname used to invoke each command executed and placed in the environment exported to that command. When checking mail, this parameter holds the name of the mail file.
Previous: Positional Parameters, Up: Shell Parameters [Contents][Index]