Hi, Finding the meaning of $? and $! in the man page is quite hard for people not familiar with the layout and bash terminology (this frequently comes up in Freenode #bash). It would be very helpful for them if you could simply search for "$!" to find the description of the parameter !.
Below is a suggestion patch that just adds a $ in front of the parameters under Special Parameters to make this possible. PS: I'm not on the list. Vidar diff -rup bash-4.1/doc/bash.1 bash-4.1-new/doc/bash.1 --- bash-4.1/doc/bash.1 2009-12-30 19:01:31.000000000 +0100 +++ bash-4.1-new/doc/bash.1 2011-01-06 10:19:06.000000000 +0100 @@ -1231,7 +1231,7 @@ The shell treats several parameters spec only be referenced; assignment to them is not allowed. .PD 0 .TP -.B * +.B $* Expands to the positional parameters, starting from one. When the expansion occurs within double quotes, it expands to a single word with the value of each parameter separated by the first character @@ -1253,7 +1253,7 @@ If .B IFS is null, the parameters are joined without intervening separators. .TP -.B @ +.B $@ Expands to the positional parameters, starting from one. When the expansion occurs within double quotes, each parameter expands to a separate word. That is, "\...@\fp" is equivalent to @@ -1266,14 +1266,14 @@ When there are no positional parameters, .B $@ expand to nothing (i.e., they are removed). .TP -.B # +.B $# Expands to the number of positional parameters in decimal. .TP -.B ? +.B $? Expands to the exit status of the most recently executed foreground pipeline. .TP -.B \- +.B $\- Expands to the current option flags as specified upon invocation, by the .B set @@ -1282,16 +1282,16 @@ builtin command, or those set by the she .B \-i option). .TP -.B $ +.B $$ Expands to the process ID of the shell. In a () subshell, it expands to the process ID of the current shell, not the subshell. .TP -.B ! +.B $! Expands to the process ID of the most recently executed background (asynchronous) command. .TP -.B 0 +.B $0 Expands to the name of the shell or shell script. This is set at shell initialization. If .B bash @@ -1309,7 +1309,7 @@ to the file name used to invoke .BR bash , as given by argument zero. .TP -.B _ +.B $_ At shell startup, set to the absolute pathname used to invoke the shell or shell script being executed as passed in the environment or argument list.
