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This chapter describes global shell options in Oils. Some options are from POSIX shell, and some are from bash. We also use options to turn OSH into YSH.

(in progress)

Errors

These options are from POSIX shell:

nounset -u  
errexit -e

These are from bash:

inherit_errexit:
pipefail

Globbing

These options are from POSIX shell:

noglob -f

From bash:

nullglob   failglob   dotglob

From Oils:

dashglob

Some details:

nullglob

When nullglob is on, a glob matching no files expands to no arguments:

shopt -s nullglob
$ echo L *.py R
L R

Without this option, the glob string itself is returned:

$ echo L *.py R  # no Python files in this dir
L *.py R

(This option is from GNU bash.)

dashglob

Do globs return results that start with -? It's on by default in bin/osh, but off when YSH is enabled.

Turning it off prevents a command like rm * from being confused by a file called -rf.

$ touch -- myfile -rf

$ echo *
-rf myfile

$ shopt -u dashglob
$ echo *
myfile

Other Option

noclobber -C  # Redirects can't overwrite files
errtrace -E   # Enable ERR trap is both shell functions and subshells

Debugging

These options are from POSIX shell:

xtrace   verbose

From bash:

extdebug

Interactive

These options are from bash.

emacs   vi

Compat

eval_unsafe_arith

Allow dynamically parsed a[$(echo 42)] For bash compatibility.

ignore_flags_not_impl

Suppress failures from flags not implemented. Example:

shopt --set ignore_flags_not_impl

declare -i foo=2+3  # not evaluated to 5, but doesn't fail either

This option can be useful for "getting past" errors while testing.

Groups

To turn OSH into YSH, we use three option groups. Some of them allow new features, and some disallow old features.

strict:all

Option in this group disallow problematic or confusing shell constructs. The resulting script will still run in another shell.

shopt --set strict:all    # turn on all options
shopt -p strict:all       # print their current state

Parsing options:

  strict_parse_slice      # No implicit length for ${a[@]::}
X strict_parse_utf8       # Source code must be valid UTF-8

Runtime options:

  strict_argv             # No empty argv
  strict_arith            # Fatal parse errors (on by default)
  strict_array            # Arrays and strings aren't confused
  strict_control_flow     # Disallow misplaced keyword, empty arg
  strict_errexit          # Disallow code that ignores failure
  strict_nameref          # Trap invalid variable names
  strict_word_eval        # Expose unicode and slicing errors
  strict_tilde            # Tilde subst can result in error
X strict_glob             # Parse the sublanguage more strictly

ysh:upgrade

Options in this group enable new YSH features. It doesn't break existing shell scripts when it's avoidable.

For example, parse_at means that @myarray is now the operation to splice an array. This will break scripts that expect @ to be literal, but you can simply quote it like '@literal' to fix the problem.

shopt --set ysh:upgrade   # turn on all options
shopt -p ysh:upgrade      # print their current state

Details on each option:

  parse_at                echo @array @[arrayfunc(x, y)]
  parse_brace             if true { ... }; cd ~/src { ... }
  parse_equals            x = 'val' in Caps { } config blocks
  parse_paren             if (x > 0) ...
  parse_proc              proc p { ... }
  parse_triple_quote      """$x"""  '''x''' (command mode)
  parse_ysh_string        echo r'\' u'\\' b'\\' (command mode)
  command_sub_errexit     Synchronous errexit check
  process_sub_fail        Analogous to pipefail for process subs
  sigpipe_status_ok       status 141 -> 0 in pipelines
  simple_word_eval        No splitting, static globbing
  xtrace_rich             Hierarchical and process tracing
  xtrace_details (-u)     Disable most tracing with +
  dashglob (-u)           Disabled to avoid files like -rf
X env_dict                Copy environ into ENV dict

ysh:all

Enable the full YSH language. This includes everything in the ysh:upgrade group and the strict:all group.

shopt --set ysh:all       # turn on all options
shopt -p ysh:all          # print their current state

Details on options that are not in ysh:upgrade and strict:all:

  parse_at_all            @ starting any word is an operator
  parse_backslash (-u)    Allow bad backslashes in "" and $''
  parse_backticks (-u)    Allow legacy syntax `echo hi`
  parse_bare_word (-u)    'case unquoted' and 'for x in unquoted'
  parse_dollar (-u)       Allow bare $ to mean \$  (maybe $/d+/)
  parse_dbracket (-u)     Is legacy [[ allowed?
  parse_dparen (-u)       Is (( legacy arithmetic allowed?
  parse_ignored (-u)      Parse, but ignore, certain redirects
  parse_sh_arith (-u)     Allow legacy shell arithmetic
  expand_aliases (-u)     Whether aliases are expanded
X no_env_vars             Use $[ENV.PYTHONPATH], not $PYTHONPATH
X old_builtins (-u)       local/declare/etc.  pushd/popd/dirs
                          ... source  unset  printf  [un]alias
                          ... getopts
X old_syntax (-u)         ( )   ${x%prefix}  ${a[@]}   $$
  simple_echo             echo doesn't accept flags -e -n
  simple_eval_builtin     eval takes exactly 1 argument
  simple_test_builtin     3 args or fewer; use test not [
X simple_trap             Function name only
  verbose_errexit         Whether to print detailed errors

YSH Details

opts-redefine

In the interactive shell, you can redefine procs and funcs.

  redefine_source          'source-guard' builtin always returns 0
X redefine_const            Can consts be redefined?

opts-internal

These options are used by the interpreter. You generally shouldn't set them yourself.

_allow_command_sub  To implement strict_errexit, eval_unsafe_arith
_allow_process_sub  To implement strict_errexit
dynamic_scope       To implement proc and func
_no_debug_trap      Used in pipelines in job control shell
_running_trap       To disable strict_errexit
_running_hay        Hay evaluation

Unlinked Descriptions

Here are some descriptions of individual options.

strict_control_flow

Disallow break and continue at the top level, and disallow empty args like return $empty.

strict_tilde

Failed tilde expansions cause hard errors (like zsh) rather than silently evaluating to ~ or ~bad.

strict_nameref

When strict_nameref is set, undefined references produce fatal errors:

declare -n ref
echo $ref  # fatal error, not empty string
ref=x      # fatal error instead of decaying to non-reference

References that don't contain variables also produce hard errors:

declare -n ref='not a var'
echo $ref  # fatal
ref=x      # fatal

parse_ignored

For compatibility, YSH will parse some constructs it doesn't execute, like:

return 0 2>&1  # redirect on control flow

When this option is disabled, that statement is a syntax error.

parse_triple_quote

Parse the shell-style multi-line strings, which strip leading whitespace:

echo '''    
  one
  two
  '''

echo """
  hello
  $name
  """

(This option affects only command mode. Such strings are always parsed in expression mode.)

parse_ysh_string

Allow r'\' and u'\\' and b'\\' strings, as well as their multi-line versions.

Since shell strings are already raw, this means that YSH just ignores the r prefix:

echo r'\'  # a single backslash

J8 unicode strings:

echo u'mu \u{3bc}'  # mu char

J8 byte strings:

echo b'byte \yff'

(This option affects only command mode. Such strings are always parsed in expression mode.)

sigpipe_status_ok

If a process that's part of a pipeline exits with status 141 when this is option is on, it's turned into status 0, which avoids failure.

SIGPIPE errors occur in cases like 'yes | head', and generally aren't useful.