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Bash 3.0 Released

Posted by michael on from the hallelujah-bash-is-risen dept.

qazwsx789 writes "The first public release of bash-3.0 is now available via ftp and from the usual GNU mirror sites. For the official release notes by the author, Chet Ramey, check his usenet post."

27 of 507 comments (clear)

  1. First "zsh rules" post! by Just+Some+Guy · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Bash was my first shell and I used it exclusively for years. One day, I'd read enough about zsh to force myself to give it a try. Oh how I loved thee, bash, but I won't be going back.

    --
    Dewey, what part of this looks like authorities should be involved?
    1. Re:First "zsh rules" post! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

      Will everyone stop with the Bash bashing, please?

    2. Re:First "zsh rules" post! by opk · · Score: 5, Informative

      Globs are more powerful: **/*.c will recursively search for .c files: much quicker to type than find.
      You can match file types: e.g. *(@) will get you symlinks. *(U) gets files owned by you.

      Syntax for alternation is a lot easier. No @(this|that) or !(*.f). Instead, it is (this|that) and ^*.f

      Next point is completion. It includes a vast range of definitions so completion works well for lots of commands. The completion system handles completing parts of words so it better handles user@host completion. You get descriptions with completion match listings. Completion also has a really powerful context sensitive configuration system so you can make it work the way you like.

      It has modules. For running a simple shell script it will actually use less space than bash because it doesn't need to load the line editor and other interactive related code into memory.

      There is much much more. It takes a while to learn everything but if you just enable the completion functions (autoload -U compinit; compinit) you'll find it better than bash or tcsh from day 1.

  2. A new version? by moonbender · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Hell, I didn't even know bash was still in active development. It was always just bash to me, not bash-x.y.z. But then I guess I wouldn't notice the difference, really.

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    Switch back to Slashdot's D1 system.
  3. On the list of changes: by meringuoid · · Score: 5, Funny
    System-specific changes for: SCO Unix 3.2

    What are these, I wonder? Something along the lines of changing the prompt to always display [litigious@bastards]$, perhaps?

    --
    Real Daleks don't climb stairs - they level the building.
  4. Neat by stratjakt · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Someone tell me why I want this. The Usenet post doesn't seem to explain what's so exciting about it, besides a bunch of boring bug-fixes, and some esoteric-sounding syntax changes.

    --
    I don't need no instructions to know how to rock!!!!
    1. Re:Neat by DAldredge · · Score: 5, Funny

      Don't worry about it. Just let the adults keep using their computers and you can keep using your as a toy.

      (It's a shell, it's not susposed to be exciting)

    2. Re:Neat by Brad+Moore · · Score: 5, Informative

      According to the changelog, all the messages are internationalized now, so if you spoke a language other than English, you can get error messages and such in your native language.

    3. Re:Neat by ellem · · Score: 5, Funny

      As part of the deal with Apple making fixes they need to get Bash to version 10 ASAP for Bash X marketing.

      --
      This .sig is fake but accurate.
    4. Re:Neat by Jugalator · · Score: 5, Funny

      (It's a shell, it's not susposed to be exciting)

      Pfft... I thought geeks browsed Slashdot!

      --
      Beware: In C++, your friends can see your privates!
    5. Re:Neat by Chris_Jefferson · · Score: 5, Informative

      The main difference is full internationalisation support, which deserves a full version upgrade :)

      Unless you have scripts which used the old slightly dubious (but still not bad) internationalisation then you should notice no differences at all. There are a couple of really, really stupid looking scripts which now produce something different, but in almost every single case the new answer is I'm sure what everyone expected to appear before :)

      --
      Combination - fun iPhone puzzling
    6. Re:Neat by KodaK · · Score: 5, Funny

      you can get error messages and such in your native language.

      This is so going to suck. If I get an error message that I'm unfamiliar with I'll plug it into google. Even if the hit is in a language I don't understand I can usually work out what a solution to my problem may be by looking at the command sequences posted in replies.

      Now I'll lose that ability just because a bunch of whiners (the rest of the world) want error messages in *their* language. That's just not fair, as it doesn't benefit me.

      I propose an immediate reversal of the i18n changes introduced into Bash 3.0. Who's with my jingoistic ass?

      --
      --J(K) DOS is like Unix in exactly the same way that a pinto is like an aircraft carrier.
  5. Not much changed by opk · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Doesn't seem to be much changed given the version number increase. [[ =~ ]] can match regexes and it can do zsh style {1..3} expansions. Improved multibyte support too. There were bigger changes in some of the 2.0x updates.

  6. Apple helping out by Macka · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Several bug fixes for POSIX compliance came in from Apple; their assistance is appreciated.

    It's nice to see yet more contributions from Apple to the OSS community.
    1. Re:Apple helping out by hot_Karls_bad_cavern · · Score: 5, Insightful

      "It's nice to see yet more contributions from Apple to the OSS community."

      Right on, brother. (This is not bashing apple before i get started!) They have done something that no one else in the *nix world has done: shit-hot gui. People can blather about this and that, but to deny that Apple has created one of the most user-friendly, beautiful, slick gui's for *nix is crazy. I'd like to continue seeing Apple release more help to OSS. Keep the real money makers to themselves (for now), but allow more dev's to release usefull changes back to the community that helped build it ya know?

      You are 100% correct that it's nice to see them making another move like this...even if it was a lil' one :)

  7. Dear Apple haters... by TheHonestTruth · · Score: 5, Informative
    From the release notes:

    Several bug fixes for POSIX compliance came in from Apple; their assistance is appreciated.

    It looks like Apple is giving back to the community, and to a fundamental tool.

    To the parent: I'm in the same boat. I thought bash 3?? What is there to add?? Looks like multibyte char support (sorry, I'm are a dum Amer'kin).

    -truth

    --

    I had a steady B+ in my AI class until I failed the Turing test...

    1. Re:Dear Apple haters... by Jahf · · Score: 5, Informative

      Believe it or not, -most- of the large companies that use GPL'ed tools give back to the community.

      Apple has done numerous fixes, not just on BASH.

      Sun (disclaimer: for whom I work) has done -tons- of work on GNOME, Mozilla and don't forget Open Office (just to name a few).

      IBM works on many projects and gives back ... plus contributing all new things like JFS.

      All the distro makers like Red Hat, Novell, etc give back tons.

      Each of those companies pay engineers to fix pieces not done in Open Source projects as well as to extend them for their customers. The patches are covered under GPL just like the main code, and these companies know it and yet knowingly dedicate serious money and hours to these projects. And then they satisfy the GPL by putting them out on source CDs or submitting them back to the main projects.

      The big problem for getting submitted code accepted is that these companies are usually fixing and developing on a codebase that is aging. For instance, Sun did numerous I18N fixes for GNOME 2.6, but by the time they were ready the main GNOME organization had moved on to 2.8. That means there is a disconnect between the two and the changes have to be ported forward before they will hit the main code branch. The same problem can happen with kernel patches and just about any other codebase that changes versions so quickly.

      Sorry, you were doing the good thing and pointing out Apple's contributions. But so many people think these companies violate the GPL (in spirit if not in law) when they are very large contributors to open source. Sure, some do, and the community usually find out about it and shame them into minimal compliance (Linksys and Sveasoft come to mind after my delving into alternate WRT54G firmwares last night), but generally speaking the big companies have been a good part of the community.

      --
      It is more productive to voice thoughtful opinions (reply) than to judge (moderate) others.
  8. It's...it's... by FreemanPatrickHenry · · Score: 5, Funny

    The Bourne Again and Again and Again Shell! Again!

    --
    I have discovered a truly marvelous .sig which, unfortunately, this space is too small to contain.
  9. POSIX Compliance issues. by Ashe+Tyrael · · Score: 5, Informative

    There's been an interesting little problem caused for people like Gentoo with the updates in bash 3.0.

    http://bugs.gentoo.org/show_bug.cgi?id=58703

    Just a simple move towards compliance breaks most of their scripts, so they've had to patch it out.

    Lovely.

    --
    "How fine you look when dressed in rage."
  10. POSIX by Waffle+Iron · · Score: 5, Funny
    This statement had me a little confused for a while:

    Several bug fixes for POSIX compliance came in from Apple; their assistance is appreciated.

    Then I looked through the POSIX spec, and sure enough I found this section, which explained things:

    POSIX section 23.4.18 (SHELL):

    To the extent possible on the terminal hardware, the shell shall present to the user the appearance mimicing a translucent plastic material. The shell rendering material model should incorporate prominent specular highlights suggesting a shiny smooth surface. The shell should cast fuzzy shadows on any user interface elements that lay below it.
  11. Re:People still use a shell for Linux? by gowen · · Score: 5, Informative
    Why type when you can just point and click?
    Batch jobs. You just can't beat
    for i in img*.jpg; do convert $i $(basename $i .jpg).png; done


    Everything else, I do in emacs...
    --
    Athletic Scholarships to universities make as much sense as academic scholarships to sports teams.
  12. once upon a time... by TheHonestTruth · · Score: 5, Informative
    tsch was the deafult for OS X and for Jaguar I believe, but they moved to bash for Panther.

    -truth

    --

    I had a steady B+ in my AI class until I failed the Turing test...

  13. History timestamps! by straponego · · Score: 5, Informative

    Bash can now store timestamps in the history and save them to the history file. This alone is worth the upgrade for me. The option to erase duplicates is pretty nice too.

  14. Re:I'm still waiting for a feature by SirPrize · · Score: 5, Funny
    From the Zenity web page:

    Zenity lets you display Gtk+ dialog boxes from the command line and through shell scripts. It is similar to gdialog, but is intended to be saner. It comes from the same family as dialog, Xdialog, and cdialog, but it surpasses those projects by having a cooler name.

  15. Re:Just wondering... by opk · · Score: 5, Informative

    Zsh is still the best.

    Bash developers have different priorities.
    Bash became the default primarily because it is GNU.
    Zsh has some ugly but powerful features like nested expansions. The two areas where bash is better than zsh is multibyte support and POSIX compliance. Much of that was contributed by IBM and Apple respectively. But if you use the shell a lot, you'll find zsh does a lot of things better. The completion is amazing. And when it isn't emulating sh/posix, it fixes some of the broken design decisions (like word splitting of variables) which saves you from doing stupid things.

    The FSF actually does development in a very closed manner when it can (the gcc egcs split was partly because of this). Bash is a good example of this. That perhaps a good thing because it is probably good that bash doesn't get some of zsh's nasty (but powerful) features. And if zsh didn't exist, bash might have been forked by now. If you care about your shell, you'll find much more of a community on the zsh lists than the spam filled bug-bash list. You can't even get at alpha releases of bash without being one of the chosen few.

  16. Really great feature ! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Guys, I'm really so excited about this. I ran around proclaiming the news about bash-3.0 in my department. Not too many people got excited (I work in Psychology) but check this out:

    [user@mitral user]$ echo $BASH_VERSION
    2.05a.0(1)-release
    [user@mitral user]$ a | b |cat
    bash: a: command not found
    bash: b: command not found
    [user@mitral user]$ echo $?
    0

    [user@mitral bash-3.0]$ echo $BASH_VERSION
    3.00.0(1)-release
    [user@mitral bash-3.0]$ set -o pipefail
    [user@mitral bash-3.0]$ a | b |cat
    bash: a: command not found
    bash: b: command not found
    [user@mitral bash-3.0]$ echo $?
    127

    Feel the love!

  17. Warning, the above is a sad unix joke! by xtermin8 · · Score: 5, Funny

    I know its hard to tell, even for people famaliar with rbash; but this is what passes for humor among unix geeks.