Features of bash

Although the Bourne shell is still known as the "standard" shell, bash is becoming increasingly popular. In addition to its Bourne shell compatibility, it includes the best features of the C and Korn shells as well as several advantages of its own.

bash's command-line editing modes are the features that tend to attract people to it first. With command-line editing, it's much easier to go back and fix mistakes or modify previous commands than it is with the C shell's history mechanism—and the Bourne shell doesn't let you do this at all.

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The other major bash feature that is intended mostly for interactive users is job control. As Chapter 8 explains, job control gives you the ability to stop, start, and pause any number of commands at the same time. This feature was borrowed almost verbatim from the C shell.

The rest of bash's important advantages are meant mainly for shell customizers and programmers. It has many new options and variables for customization, and its programming features have been significantly expanded to include function definition, more control structures, integer arithmetic, advanced I/O control, and more.

 

[1] The Korn shell can be downloaded for free but it comes with a license that will require payment if the shell is used in certain situations.

[2] GNU is a recursive acronym, standing for "GNU's Not UNIX."