Path: csiph.com!xmission!news.glorb.com!usenet.stanford.edu!not-for-mail From: Chet Ramey Newsgroups: gnu.bash.bug Subject: Re: OLDPWD unset when bash starts Date: Thu, 26 Nov 2015 12:41:12 -0500 Organization: ITS, Case Western Reserve University Lines: 17 Approved: bug-bash@gnu.org Message-ID: References: <453853448.7488208.1447875868401.JavaMail.yahoo.ref@mail.yahoo.com> <453853448.7488208.1447875868401.JavaMail.yahoo@mail.yahoo.com> Reply-To: chet.ramey@case.edu NNTP-Posting-Host: lists.gnu.org Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=utf-8 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Trace: usenet.stanford.edu 1448559682 10785 208.118.235.17 (26 Nov 2015 17:41:22 GMT) X-Complaints-To: action@cs.stanford.edu Cc: chet.ramey@case.edu To: John Wiersba , "bug-bash@gnu.org" Envelope-to: bug-bash@gnu.org User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (Macintosh; Intel Mac OS X 10.11; rv:38.0) Gecko/20100101 Thunderbird/38.3.0 In-Reply-To: <453853448.7488208.1447875868401.JavaMail.yahoo@mail.yahoo.com> X-Mirapoint-Virus-RAPID-Raw: score=unknown(0), refid=str=0001.0A020205.56574439.0091,ss=1,re=0.000,fgs=0, ip=174.130.23.102, so=2015-08-12 04:07:17, dmn=2011-05-27 18:58:46 X-Mirapoint-Loop-Id: 0021fe52620fa8453103451c7aa128aa X-Junkmail-Whitelist: YES (by domain whitelist at mpv4-2015.case.edu) X-Mirapoint-Virus-RAPID-Raw: score=unknown(0), refid=str=0001.0A020206.56574439.016F,ss=1,re=0.000,fgs=0, ip=174.130.23.102, so=2015-08-12 04:07:17, dmn=2011-05-27 18:58:46 X-Mirapoint-Loop-Id: 281111ea604e927f257a255a13547da9 X-detected-operating-system: by eggs.gnu.org: GNU/Linux 2.4.x-2.6.x [generic] [fuzzy] X-Received-From: 129.22.103.195 X-BeenThere: bug-bash@gnu.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.14 Precedence: list List-Id: Bug reports for the GNU Bourne Again SHell List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , Xref: csiph.com gnu.bash.bug:11928 On 11/18/15 2:44 PM, John Wiersba wrote: > Why does bash clear OLDPWD when a child script is started? Because a new shell does not have a `previous working directory'. It's supposed to be set by cd, and if you haven't executed cd, you don't have one. It seems reasonable to inherit OLDPWD if it names a directory, in the same way that the shell inherits PWD if it names the current directory, so we'll try that for the next bash version. Chet -- ``The lyf so short, the craft so long to lerne.'' - Chaucer ``Ars longa, vita brevis'' - Hippocrates Chet Ramey, ITS, CWRU chet@case.edu http://cnswww.cns.cwru.edu/~chet/