Name

Shell - command language interpreter

Synopsis

$ Shell [--skip-shellrc] [--live-formatting]
$ Shell [--skip-shellrc] command_file [arguments...]
$ Shell [--skip-shellrc] -c command_string [arguments...]
$ Shell [--skip-shellrc] --format command_file

Description

The Shell utility is a command language interpreter, which reads commands from either a command string, a specified file, or the standard input. The command language shall be described in Shell(5), The Shell Command Language.

Any extra arguments passed into arguments are placed in the local variable $ARGV and can also be accessed through the special variable $*.

NOTE:

The Shell utility does not promise POSIX sh interoperability.

Options

• -c, --command-string: Executes the given string as a command and exits
• --skip-shellrc: Skips running the initialization file (at ~/.shellrc)
• --format: Format shell code from the given file and print the result to standard output
• -f, --live-formatting: Enable live formatting of the line editor buffer (in REPL mode)
• --keep-open: Keep the shell open after running the specified command or file
• --posix: Behave like a POSIX-compatible shell

Examples

# Start an interactive REPL, ignoring the shellrc
Shell --skip-shellrc

# Execute a given string
Shell -c 'rm foo*'

# Execute the contents of a file with some arguments
Shell foo a b c

See also

• Shell-vars(7) For details on local and environment variables used by the shell