Re: Special parameter $_ expands to a relative path

[Roger]

> On Thu, Sep 01, 2011 at 09:35:14AM +0300, Angel Tsankov wrote:
>Hello,
>
>The Bash Reference Manual 
>(http://www.gnu.org/s/bash/manual/bash.html#Special-Parameters) says:
>
>At shell startup, [$_ is] set to the absolute pathname used to invoke 
>the shell or shell script being executed as passed in the environment or 
>argument list. [...]
>
>However, with GNU bash, version 3.2.39 a simple script (named 'a'):
>
>#!/bin/bash
>echo "$_"
>
>prints './a' when invoked as './a'.  According to the above excerpt, 
>should it not print an absolute path to 'a' instead?


bash-4.2_p10, seems to print to stdout the last file, folder or command.

MAILPATH
              A  colon-separated list of file names to be checked for mail.  
The message to be printed when mail arrives in a particular file
              may be specified by separating the file name from the message 
with a `?'.  When used in the text of the message, $_ expands  to
              the name of the current mailfile.  Example:
              MAILPATH='/var/mail/bfox?"You have mail":~/shell-mail?"$_ has 
mail!"'


bash-4.2_p10 doesn't say much more about $_.  Learning the Bash Shell 3rd 
version just paraphrases the above.

Thought I saw something more written about the $_ someplace, guess not though.


-- 
Roger
http://rogerx.freeshell.org/