What's new in version 2.05a?

What's new in version 2.05a? 


The raison d'etre for bash-2.05a is to make an intermediate release

containing principally bug fixes (some very good work was done and

contributed after bash-2.05 was released) available before I start to

work on the major new features to be available in the next release

(bash-2.06 or bash-3.0 or whatever I tag it).  As such, there are

only a few relatively minor new features.



Bash-2.05a contains the following new features (see the manual page for

complete descriptions and the CHANGES and NEWS files in the bash-2.05a

distribution):



o The `printf' builtin has undergone major work



o There is a new read-only `shopt' option: login_shell, which is set by

  login shells and unset otherwise



o New `\A' prompt string escape sequence; expanding to time in 24-hour

  HH:MM format



o New `-A group/-g' option to complete and compgen; goes group name

  completion



o New [+-]O invocation option to set and unset `shopt' options at startup



o ksh-like `ERR' trap



o `for' loops now allow empty word lists after the `in' reserved word



o new `hard' and `soft' arguments for the `ulimit' builtin



o Readline can be configured to place the user at the same point on the line

  when retrieving commands from the history list



o Readline can be configured to skip `hidden' files (filenames with a leading

  `.' on Unix) when performing completion



A short feature history dating from bash-2.0:



Bash-2.05 introduced the following new features:



o This version has once again reverted to using locales and strcoll(3) when

  processing pattern matching bracket expressions, as POSIX requires. 

o Added a new `--init-file' invocation argument as a synonym for `--rcfile',

  per the new GNU coding standards.

o The /dev/tcp and /dev/udp redirections now accept service names as well as

  port numbers.

o `complete' and `compgen' now take a `-o value' option, which controls some

   of the aspects of that compspec.  Valid values are:



        default - perform bash default completion if programmable

                  completion produces no matches

        dirnames - perform directory name completion if programmable

                   completion produces no matches

        filenames - tell readline that the compspec produces filenames,

                    so it can do things like append slashes to

                    directory names and suppress trailing spaces

o A new loadable builtin, realpath, which canonicalizes and expands symlinks

  in pathname arguments.

o When `set' is called without options, it prints function defintions in a

  way that allows them to be reused as input.  This affects `declare' and 

  `declare -p' as well.  This only happens when the shell is not in POSIX

   mode, since POSIX.2 forbids this behavior.



Bash-2.04 introduced the following new features:



o Programmable word completion with the new `complete' and `compgen' builtins;

  examples are provided in examples/complete/complete-examples

o `history' has a new `-d' option to delete a history entry

o `bind' has a new `-x' option to bind key sequences to shell commands

o The prompt expansion code has new `\j' and `\l' escape sequences

o The `no_empty_cmd_completion' shell option, if enabled, inhibits

  command completion when TAB is typed on an empty line

o `help' has a new `-s' option to print a usage synopsis

o New arithmetic operators: var++, var--, ++var, --var, expr1,expr2 (comma)

o New ksh93-style arithmetic for command:

	for ((expr1 ; expr2; expr3 )); do list; done

o `read' has new options: `-t', `-n', `-d', `-s'

o The redirection code handles several filenames specially:  /dev/fd/N,

  /dev/stdin, /dev/stdout, /dev/stderr

o The redirection code now recognizes /dev/tcp/HOST/PORT and

  /dev/udp/HOST/PORT and tries to open a TCP or UDP socket, respectively,

  to the specified port on the specified host

o The ${!prefix*} expansion has been implemented

o A new FUNCNAME variable, which expands to the name of a currently-executing

  function

o The GROUPS variable is no longer readonly

o A new shopt `xpg_echo' variable, to control the behavior of echo with

  respect to backslash-escape sequences at runtime

o The NON_INTERACTIVE_LOGIN_SHELLS #define has returned



The version of Readline released with Bash-2.04, Readline-4.1, had several

new features as well:



o Parentheses matching is always compiled into readline, and controllable

  with the new `blink-matching-paren' variable

o The history-search-forward and history-search-backward functions now leave

  point at the end of the line when the search string is empty, like

  reverse-search-history, and forward-search-history

o A new function for applications:  rl_on_new_line_with_prompt()

o New variables for applications:  rl_already_prompted, and rl_gnu_readline_p





Bash-2.03 had very few new features, in keeping with the convention

that odd-numbered releases provide mainly bug fixes.  A number of new

features were added to Readline, mostly at the request of the Cygnus

folks.



A new shopt option, `restricted_shell', so that startup files can test

	whether or not the shell was started in restricted mode

Filename generation is now performed on the words between ( and ) in

	compound array assignments (this is really a bug fix)

OLDPWD is now auto-exported, as POSIX.2 requires

ENV and BASH_ENV are read-only variables in a restricted shell

Bash may now be linked against an already-installed Readline library,

	as long as the Readline library is version 4 or newer

All shells begun with the `--login' option will source the login shell

	startup files, even if the shell is not interactive



There were lots of changes to the version of the Readline library released

along with Bash-2.03.  For a complete list of the changes, read the file

CHANGES in the Bash-2.03 distribution.



Bash-2.02 contained the following new features:



a new version of malloc (based on the old GNU malloc code in previous

	bash versions) that is more page-oriented, more conservative

	with memory usage, does not `orphan' large blocks when they

	are freed, is usable on 64-bit machines, and has allocation

	checking turned on unconditionally

POSIX.2-style globbing character classes ([:alpha:], [:alnum:], etc.)

POSIX.2-style globbing equivalence classes

POSIX.2-style globbing collating symbols

the ksh [[...]] extended conditional command

the ksh egrep-style extended pattern matching operators

a new `printf' builtin

the ksh-like $(	$(cat filename)

new tilde prefixes that expand to directories from the directory stack

new `**' arithmetic operator to do exponentiation

case-insensitive globbing (filename expansion)

menu completion a la tcsh

`magic-space' history expansion function like tcsh

the readline inputrc `language' has a new file inclusion directive ($include)



Bash-2.01 contained only a few new features:



new `GROUPS' builtin array variable containing the user's group list

new bindable readline commands: history-and-alias-expand-line and

	alias-expand-line



Bash-2.0 contained extensive changes and new features from bash-1.14.7.

Here's a short list:



new `time' reserved word to time pipelines, shell builtins, and

	shell functions

one-dimensional arrays with a new compound assignment statement,

        appropriate expansion constructs and modifications to some

	of the builtins (read, declare, etc.) to use them

new quoting syntaxes for ANSI-C string expansion and locale-specific

	string translation

new expansions to do substring extraction, pattern replacement, and

	indirect variable expansion

new builtins: `disown' and `shopt'

new variables: HISTIGNORE, SHELLOPTS, PIPESTATUS, DIRSTACK, GLOBIGNORE,

	       MACHTYPE, BASH_VERSINFO

special handling of many unused or redundant variables removed

	(e.g., $notify, $glob_dot_filenames, $no_exit_on_failed_exec)

dynamic loading of new builtin commands; many loadable examples provided

new prompt expansions: \a, \e, \n, \H, \T, \@, \v, \V

history and aliases available in shell scripts

new readline variables: enable-keypad, mark-directories, input-meta,

	visible-stats, disable-completion, comment-begin

new readline commands to manipulate the mark and operate on the region

new readline emacs mode commands and bindings for ksh-88 compatibility

updated and extended builtins

new DEBUG trap

expanded (and now documented) restricted shell mode



implementation stuff:	

autoconf-based configuration

nearly all of the bugs reported since version 1.14 have been fixed

most builtins converted to use builtin `getopt' for consistency

most builtins use -p option to display output in a reusable form

	(for consistency)

grammar tighter and smaller (66 reduce-reduce conflicts gone)

lots of code now smaller and faster

test suite greatly expanded

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