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8. Where do I go from here?

8.1 How do I report bugs in bash, and where should I look for fixes and

advice?

Use the `bashbug' script to report bugs. It is built and installed at the same time as bash. It provides a standard template for reporting a problem and automatically includes information about your configuration and build environment.

`bashbug' sends its reports to bug- ash@gnu.org, which is a large mailing list gatewayed to the usenet newsgroup gnu.bash.bug.

Bug fixes, answers to questions, and announcements of new releases are all posted to gnu.bash.bug. Discussions concerning bash features and problems also take place there.

To reach the bash maintainers directly, send mail to bash- aintainers@gnu.org.

8.2 What kind of bash documentation is there?

First, look in the doc directory in the bash distribution. It should contain at least the following files:

bash.1 an extensive, thorough Unix-style manual page builtins.1 a manual page covering just bash builtin commands bashref.texi a reference manual in GNU tex`info format bashref.info an info version of the reference manual FAQ this file article.ms text of an article written for The Linux Journal readline.3 a man page describing readline

Postscript, HTML, and ASCII files created from the above source are available in the documentation distribution.

There is additional documentation available for anonymous FTP from host ftp.cwru.edu in the `pub/bash' directory.

Cameron Newham and Bill Rosenblatt have written a book on bash, published by O'Reilly and Associates. The book is based on Bill Rosenblatt's Korn Shell book. The title is ``Learning the Bash Shell'', and the ISBN number is 1-56592-147-X. Look for it in fine bookstores near you. This book covers bash-1.14, but has an appendix describing some of the new features in bash-2.0.

A second edition of this book is available, published in January, 1998. The ISBN number is 1-56592-347-2. Look for it in the same fine bookstores or on the web.

8.3 What's coming in future versions?

These are features I plan to include in a future version of bash.

a bash debugger (a minimally-tested version is included with bash-2.04) associative arrays

8.4 What's on the bash `wish list' for future versions?

These are features that may or may not appear in a future version of bash.

breaking some of the shell functionality into embeddable libraries a module system like zsh's, using dynamic loading like builtins better internationalization using GNU `gettext' an option to use external files for the long `help' text date-stamped command history a bash programmer's guide with a chapter on creating loadable builtins a better loadable interface to perl with access to the shell builtins and variables (contributions gratefully accepted)

8.5 When will the next release appear?

The next version will appear sometime in 2000 or 2001. Never make predictions.

This document is Copyright 1995-2000 by Chester Ramey.

Permission is hereby granted, without written agreement and without license or royalty fees, to use, copy, and distribute this document for any purpose, provided that the above copyright notice appears in all copies of this document and that the contents of this document remain unaltered.


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