Re: *term -ls, a summary
On Fri, 19 Jul 2002, Clint Adams wrote:
> > Why? Opening an xterm for interacting directly with a shell is IMHO
> > functionally the same as opening an VC. And I am really pissed off if
> > I don't get a login shell and the profiles aren't sourced. It's different
> > of course if you open the xterm to run a program which is not a shell.
>
> In what situations, then, do you have/want an interactive shell that is
> not a login shell?
Generally you don't. But there are some important differences between
interactive and non-interactive shell behaviour which can be useful with
shell scripts. Ie
* an interactive bash still sources the file ~/.bashrc
so that you can define aliases or functions there to use with both
shell scripts and login shells, but not setting fancy prompts or
coloured ls modes which frequently confuse shell scripts.
* The default signal/error handling differs.
* An interactive shell by default uses the readline library for
handling input and performs history expansion.
* An interactive shell sets the prompt variable PS1, this was sometimes
used to primitivly check for uid 0.
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