Making $! and $? searchable in the man page

[Vidar Holen]

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 $@
 Expands to the positional parameters, starting from one.  When the
 expansion occurs within double quotes, each parameter expands to a
 separate word.  That is, "\fB$@\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.