Marc Herbert wrote: > Hi, > > I more or less assumed that section "3. Basic Shell Features" is all > POSIX, in contrast to section "6. Bash Features" which starts like this: > "This section 6 describes features unique to Bash."
Not really. The basic shell features are just that: the programming and expansion constructs that allow you to use the shell and write shell programs. > I think I was wrong. There seems to be at least two non-POSIX features > documented in the "Basic" section (brace expansion and process > substitution). Because all of the expansions should be documented together. It would reduce the manual's usefulness considerably if the expansions, which are performed in sequence, were split across sections. > Does the manual make any attempt to draw a line between POSIX and > non-POSIX features? Does the "unique to bash" introduction sentence > really make sense since most of these features are also found in other > shells? Thanks in advance... The bash documentation describes bash. Its features are a superset of the Posix feature set. The manual attempts only to document what changes when bash is in Posix mode. If you want a description of what Posix specifies, you can find it online: http://www.opengroup.org/onlinepubs/9699919799/nfindex.html The intent is that bash, with the correct set of options, implements everything there in a conforming fashion, and provides additions beyond what Posix specifies. While some of the features in section 6 have been adopted by other shells (or adopted from other shells) since the introductory sentence was written, the section as a whole still documents the most-often-encountered places, besides builtin commands unique to or extended in bash, where users will find differences. Chet -- ``The lyf so short, the craft so long to lerne.'' - Chaucer ``Ars longa, vita brevis'' - Hippocrates Chet Ramey, ITS, CWRU c...@case.edu http://cnswww.cns.cwru.edu/~chet/
