[TL;DR: Bash developer Chet Ramey claimed in 2015 that this is a documentation bug. Then, in 2016, a documentation patch has been proposed to (and possibly accepted by?) Debian.]
On 16 Sep 2016, Chet Ramey released version 4.4 of bash. This inspired me to check and see if this long standing issue has been fixed. Here is what I learned. Debian bug # 343673 from 2005. https://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=343673 Debian bug # 516152 from 2009. https://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=516152 GNU Savannah bug #107950 from 2012. https://savannah.gnu.org/support/index.php?107950 In 2015, Chet Ramey commented on the above Savannah bug report: "Debian made that documentation error. If you compile with -DSYS_BASHRC, it's always executed, as is ~/.bashrc (or the file specified with --rcfile)" In other words, Ramey claims this is a documentation bug. I do not know if -DSYS_BASHRC has only the one above effect, or if it also has other effects as well. In 2016, Tom Levy posted the following comment on Debian bug #516152 (see above link). "Convincing Chet that the behaviour in Debian's documentation is preferable to the current behaviour seems hard considering his 3-year response time. I propose changing the documentation." Levy also included a patch to Debian's bash man page. The patch is here: https://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?att=3;bug=516152;filename =man-bashrc.diff.patch;msg=27 I am not an expert on the Debian development process, so I am unable to determine if the patch has been accepted by Debian. The patch does not appear to have been applied to the following file, but this might not be the correct place to look for the patch. (Again, I am not a Debian expert.) http://sources.debian.net/src/bash/4.4-1/doc/bash.1/ -- You received this bug notification because you are a member of Ubuntu Touch seeded packages, which is subscribed to bash in Ubuntu. https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/589496 Title: bash --rcfile does not behave as documented Status in bash package in Ubuntu: Confirmed Status in bash package in Debian: New Bug description: Binary package hint: bash the bash manpage says this about --rcfile --rcfile file Execute commands from file instead of the system wide initial‐ ization file /etc/bash.bashrc and the standard personal initial‐ ization file ~/.bashrc if the shell is interactive (see INVOCA‐ TION below). under INVOCATION it says When an interactive shell that is not a login shell is started, bash reads and executes commands from /etc/bash.bashrc and ~/.bashrc, if these files exist. This may be inhibited by using the --norc option. The --rcfile file option will force bash to read and execute commands from file instead of /etc/bash.bashrc and ~/.bashrc. but when i execute $ bash --rcfile somercfilewhichreallydoesexistandisreadableandall it will still read /etc/bash/bashrc (can be verified by adding --verbose) using lucid with bash 4.1-2ubuntu3 To manage notifications about this bug go to: https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/bash/+bug/589496/+subscriptions -- Mailing list: https://launchpad.net/~touch-packages Post to : touch-packages@lists.launchpad.net Unsubscribe : https://launchpad.net/~touch-packages More help : https://help.launchpad.net/ListHelp
