ARG_MAX
| Shells
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"$@"
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nroff source postprocessed with man2html plus fixups (.ta table, .IR syntax) for current nroff
ASH(1) ASH(1)
NAME
ash - a shell
SYNOPSIS
ash [ -efIijnsxz ] [ +efIijnsxz ] [ -c command ] [ arg ] ...
COPYRIGHT
Copyright (C) 1989 by Kenneth Almquist.
DESCRIPTION
Ash is a version of sh with features similar to those of the System V
shell. This manual page lists all the features of ash but concentrates
on the ones not in other shells.
Invocation
If the -c options is given, then the shell executes the specified shell
command. The -s flag cause the shell to read commands from the stan-
dard input (after executing any command specified with the -c option.
If neither the -s or -c options are set, then the first arg is taken as
the name of a file to read commands from. If this is impossible
because there are no arguments following the options, then ash will set
the -s flag and will read commands from the standard input.
The shell sets the initial value of the positional parameters from the
args remaining after any arg used as the name of a file of commands is
deleted.
The flags (other than -c) are set by preceding them with ``-'' and
cleared by preceding them with ``+''; see the set builtin command for a
list of flags. If no value is specified for the -i flag, the -s flag
is set, and the standard input and output of the shell are connected to
terminals, then the -i flag will be set. If no value is specified for
the -j flag, then the -j flag will be set if the -i flag is set.
When the shell is invoked with the -c option, it is good practice to
include the -i flag if the command was entered interactively by a user.
For compatibility with the System V shell, the -i option should come
after the -c option.
If the first character of argument zero to the shell is ``-'', the
shell is assumed to be a login shell, and the files /etc/profile and
.profile are read if they exist. If the environment variable SHINIT is
set on entry to the shell, the commands in SHINIT are normally parsed
and executed. SHINIT is not examined if the shell is a login shell, or
if it the shell is running a shell procedure. (A shell is considered
to be running a shell procedure if neither the -s nor the -c options
are set.)
Control Structures
A list is a sequence of zero or more commands separated by newlines,
semicolons, or ampersands, and optionally terminated by one of these
three characters. (This differs from the System V shell, which
requires a list to contain at least one command in most cases.) The
commands in a list are executed in the order they are written. If com-
mand is followed by an ampersand, the shell starts the command and
immediately proceed onto the next command; otherwise it waits for the
command to terminate before proceeding to the next one.
``&&'' and ``||'' are binary operators. ``&&'' executes the first com-
mand, and then executes the second command iff the exit status of the
first command is zero. ``||'' is similar, but executes the second com-
mand iff the exit status of the first command is nonzero. ``&&'' and
``||'' both have the same priority.
The ``|'' operator is a binary operator which feeds the standard output
of the first command into the standard input of the second command.
The exit status of the ``|'' operator is the exit status of the second
command. ``|'' has a higher priority than ``||'' or ``&&''.
An if command looks like
if list
then list
[ elif list
then list ] ...
[ else list ]
fi
A while command looks like
while list
do list
done
The two lists are executed repeatedly while the exit status of the
first list is zero. The until command is similar, but has the word
until in place of while
repeats until the exit status of the first list is zero.
The for command looks like
for variable in word...
do list
done
The words are expanded, and then the list is executed repeatedly with
the variable set to each word in turn. do and done may be replaced
with ``{'' and ``}''.
The break and continue commands look like
break [ num ]
continue [ num ]
Break terminates the num innermost for or while loops. Continue con-
tinues with the next iteration of the num'th innermost loop. These are
implemented as builtin commands.
The case command looks like
case word in
pattern) list ;;
...
esac
The pattern can actually be one or more patterns (see Patterns below),
separated by ``|'' characters.
Commands may be grouped by writing either
(list)
or
{ list; }
The first of these executes the commands in a subshell.
A function definition looks like
name ( ) command
A function definition is an executable statement; when executed it
installs a function named name and returns an exit status of zero. The
command is normally a list enclosed between ``{'' and ``}''.
Variables may be declared to be local to a function by using a local
command. This should appear as the first staement of a function, and
looks like
local [ variable | - ] ...
Local is implemented as a builtin command.
When a variable is made local, it inherits the initial value and
exported and readonly flags from the variable with the same name in the
surrounding scope, if there is one. Otherwise, the variable is ini-
tially unset. Ash uses dynamic scoping, so that if you make the vari-
able x local to function f, which then calls function g, references to
the variable x made inside g will refer to the variable x declared
inside f, not to the global variable named x.
The only special parameter than can be made local is ``-''. Making
``-'' local any shell options that are changed via the set command
inside the function to be restored to their original values when the
function returns.
The return command looks like
return [ exitstatus ]
It terminates the currently executing function. Return is implemented
as a builtin command.
Simple Commands
A simple command is a sequence of words. The execution of a simple
command proceeds as follows. First, the leading words of the form
``name=value'' are stripped off and assigned to the environment of the
command. Second, the words are expanded. Third, the first remaining
word is taken as the command name that command is located. Fourth, any
redirections are performed. Fifth, the command is executed. We look
at these operations in reverse order.
The execution of the command varies with the type of command. There
are three types of commands: shell functions, builtin commands, and
normal programs.
When a shell function is executed, all of the shell positional parame-
ters (except $0, which remains unchanged) are set to the parameters to
the shell function. The variables which are explicitly placed in the
environment of the command (by placing assignments to them before the
function name) are made local to the function and are set to values
given. Then the command given in the function definition is executed.
The positional parameters are restored to their original values when
the command completes.
Shell builtins are executed internally to the shell, without spawning a
new process.
When a normal program is executed, the shell runs the program, passing
the parameters and the environment to the program. If the program is a
shell procedure, the shell will interpret the program in a subshell.
The shell will reinitialize itself in this case, so that the effect
will be as if a new shell had been invoked to handle the shell proce-
dure, except that the location of commands located in the parent shell
will be remembered by the child. If the program is a file beginning
with ``#!'', the remainder of the first line specifies an interpreter
for the program. The shell (or the operating system, under Berkeley
UNIX) will run the interpreter in this case. The arguments to the
interpreter will consist of any arguments given on the first line of
the program, followed by the name of the program, followed by the argu-
ments passed to the program.
Redirection
Input/output redirections can be intermixed with the words in a simple
command and can be placed following any of the other commands. When
redirection occurs, the shell saves the old values of the file descrip-
tors and restores them when the command completes. The ``<'', ``>'',
and ``>>'' redirections open a file for input, output, and appending,
respectively. The ``<&digit'' and ``>&digit'' makes the input or out-
put a duplicate of the file descriptor numbered by the digit. If a
minus sign is used in place of a digit, the standard input or standard
output are closed.
The ``<< word'' redirection takes input from a here document. As the
shell encounters ``<<'' redirections, it collects them. The next time
it encounters an unescaped newline, it reads the documents in turn.
The word following the ``<<'' specifies the contents of the line that
terminates the document. If none of the quoting methods ('', "", or \)
are used to enter the word, then the document is treated like a word
inside double quotes: ``$'' and backquote are expanded and backslash
can be used to escape these and to continue long lines. The word can-
not contain any variable or command substitutions, and its length
(after quoting) must be in the range of 1 to 79 characters. If ``<<-''
is used in place of ``<<'', then leading tabs are deleted from the
lines of the document. (This is to allow you do indent shell proce-
dures containing here documents in a natural fashion.)
Any of the preceding redirection operators may be preceded by a single
digit specifying the file descriptor to be redirected. There cannot be
any white space between the digit and the redirection operator.
Path Search
When locating a command, the shell first looks to see if it has a shell
function by that name. Then, if PATH does not contain an entry for
"%builtin", it looks for a builtin command by that name. Finally, it
searches each entry in PATH in turn for the command.
The value of the PATH variable should be a series of entries separated
by colons. Each entry consists of a directory name, or a directory
name followed by a flag beginning with a percent sign. The current
directory should be indicated by an empty directory name.
If no percent sign is present, then the entry causes the shell to
search for the command in the specified directory. If the flag is
``%builtin'' then the list of shell builtin commands is searched. If
the flag is ``%func'' then the directory is searched for a file which
is read as input to the shell. This file should define a function
whose name is the name of the command being searched for.
Command names containing a slash are simply executed without performing
any of the above searches.
The Environment
The environment of a command is a set of name/value pairs. When the
shell is invoked, it reads these names and values, sets the shell vari-
ables with these names to the corresponding values, and marks the vari-
ables as exported. The export command can be used to mark additional
variables as exported.
The environment of a command is constructed by constructing name/value
pairs from all the exported shell variables, and then modifying this
set by the assignments which precede the command, if any.
Expansion
The process of evaluating words when a shell procedure is executed is
called expansion. Expansion consists of four steps: variable substi-
tution, command substitution, word splitting, and file name generation.
If a word is the expression following the word case in a case state-
ment, the file name which follows a redirection symbol, or an assign-
ment to the environment of a command, then the word cannot be split
into multiple words. In these cases, the last two steps of the expan-
sion process are omitted.
Variable Substitution
To be written.
Command Substitution
Ash accepts two syntaxes for command substitution:
`list`
and
$(list)
Either of these may be included in a word. During the command substi-
tution process, the command (syntactly a list) will be executed and
anything that the command writes to the standard output will be cap-
tured by the shell. The final newline (if any) of the output will be
deleted; the rest of the output will be substituted for the command in
the word.
Word Splitting
When the value of a variable or the output of a command is substituted,
the resulting text is subject to word splitting, unless the dollar sign
introducing the variable or backquotes containing the text were
enclosed in double quotes. In addition, ``$@'' is subject to a special
type of splitting, even in the presence of double quotes.
Ash uses two different splitting algorithms. The normal approach,
which is intended for splitting text separated by which space, is used
if the first character of the shell variable IFS is a space. Otherwise
an alternative experimental algorithm, which is useful for splitting
(possibly empty) fields separated by a separator character, is used.
When performing splitting, the shell scans the replacement text looking
for a character (when IFS does not begin with a space) or a sequence of
characters (when IFS does begin with a space), deletes the character or
sequence of characters, and spits the word into two strings at that
point. When IFS begins with a space, the shell deletes either of the
strings if they are null. As a special case, if the word containing
the replacement text is the null string, the word is deleted.
The variable ``$@'' is special in two ways. First, splitting takes
place between the positional parameters, even if the text is enclosed
in double quotes. Second, if the word containing the replacement text
is the null string and there are no positional parameters, then the
word is deleted. The result of these rules is that "$@" is equivalent
to "$1" "$2" ... "$n", where n is the number of positional parameters.
(Note that this differs from the System V shell. The System V documen-
tation claims that "$@" behaves this way; in fact on the System V shell
"$@" is equivalent to "" when there are no positional paramteters.)
File Name Generation
Unless the -f flag is set, file name generation is performed after word
splitting is complete. Each word is viewed as a series of patterns,
separated by slashes. The process of expansion replaces the word with
the names of all existing files whose names can be formed by replacing
each pattern with a string that matches the specified pattern. There
are two restrictions on this: first, a pattern cannot match a string
containing a slash, and second, a pattern cannot match a string start-
ing with a period unless the first character of the pattern is a
period.
If a word fails to match any files and the -z flag is not set, then the
word will be left unchanged (except that the meta-characters will be
converted to normal characters). If the -z flag is set, then the word
is only left unchanged if none of the patterns contain a character that
can match anything besides itself. Otherwise the -z flag forces the
word to be replaced with the names of the files that it matches, even
if there are zero names.
Patterns
A pattern consists of normal characters, which match themselves, and
meta-characters. The meta-characters are ``!'', ``*'', ``?'', and
``[''. These characters lose there special meanings if they are
quoted. When command or variable substitution is performed and the
dollar sign or back quotes are not double quoted, the value of the
variable or the output of the command is scanned for these characters
and they are turned into meta-characters.
Two exclamation points at the beginning of a pattern function as a
``not'' operator, causing the pattern to match any string that the
remainder of the pattern does not match. Other occurances of exclama-
tion points in a pattern match exclamation points. Two exclamation
points are required rather than one to decrease the incompatibility
with the System V shell (which does not treat exclamation points spe-
cially).
An asterisk (``*'') matches any string of characters. A question mark
matches any single character. A left bracket (``['') introduces a
character class. The end of the character class is indicated by a
``]''; if the ``]'' is missing then the ``['' matches a ``['' rather
than introducing a character class. A character class matches any of
the characters between the square brackets. A range of characters may
be specified using a minus sign. The character class may be comple-
mented by making an exclamation point the first character of the char-
acter class.
To include a ``]'' in a character class, make it the first character
listed (after the ``!'', if any). To include a minus sign, make it the
first or last character listed.
The /u Directory
By convention, the name ``/u/user'' refers to the home directory of the
specified user. There are good reasons why this feature should be sup-
ported by the file system (using a feature such as symbolic links)
rather than by the shell, but ash is capable of performing this mapping
if the file system doesn't. If the mapping is done by ash, setting the
-f flag will turn it off.
Character Set
Ash silently discards nul characters. Any other character will be han-
dled correctly by ash, including characters with the high order bit
set.
Job Names and Job Control
The term job refers to a process created by a shell command, or in the
case of a pipeline, to the set of processes in the pipeline. The ways
to refer to a job are:
%number %string %% process_id
The first form identifies a job by job number. When a command is run,
ash assigns it a job number (the lowest unused number is assigned).
The second form identifies a job by giving a prefix of the command
used to create the job. The prefix must be unique. If there is only
one job, then the null prefix will identify the job, so you can refer
to the job by writing ``%''. The third form refers to the current
job. The current job is the last job to be stopped while it was in
the foreground. (See the next paragraph.) The last form identifies a
job by giving the process id of the last process in the job.
If the operating system that ash is running on supports job control,
ash will allow you to use it. In this case, typing the suspend charac-
ter (typically ^Z) while running a command will return you to ash and
will make the suspended command the current job. You can then continue
the job in the background by typing bg, or you can continue it in the
foreground by typing fg.
Atty
If the shell variable ATTY is set, and the shell variable TERM is not
set to ``emacs'', then ash generates appropriate escape sequences to
talk to atty(1).
Exit Statuses
By tradition, an exit status of zero means that a command has succeeded
and a nonzero exit status indicates that the command failed. This is
better than no convention at all, but in practice it is extremely use-
ful to allow commands that succeed to use the exit status to return
information to the caller. A variety of better conventions have been
proposed, but none of them has met with universal approval. The con-
vention used by ash and all the programs included in the ash distribu-
tion is as follows:
0 Success.
1 Alternate success.
2 Failure.
129-... Command terminated by a signal.
The alternate success return is used by commands to indicate various
conditions which are not errors but which can, with a little imagina-
tion, be conceived of as less successful than plain success. For exam-
ple, test returns 1 when the tested condition is false and getopts
returns 1 when there are no more options. Because this convention is
not used universally, the -e option of ash causes the shell to exit
when a command returns 1 even though that contradicts the convention
described here.
When a command is terminated by a signal, the uses 128 plus the signal
number as the exit code for the command.
Builtin Commands
This concluding section lists the builtin commands which are builtin
because they need to perform some operation that can't be performed by
a separate process. In addition to these, there are several other com-
mands (catf, echo, expr, line, nlecho, test, ``:'', and true) which can
optionally be compiled into the shell. The builtin commands described
below that accept options use the System V Release 2 getopt(3) syntax.
bg [ job ] ...
Continue the specified jobs (or the current job if no jobs are
given) in the background. This command is only available on sys-
tems with Bekeley job control.
bltin command arg...
Execute the specified builtin command. (This is useful when you
have a shell function with the same name as a builtin command.)
cd [ directory ]
Switch to the specified directory (default $HOME). If the an
entry for CDPATH appears in the environment of the cd command or
the shell variable CDPATH is set and the directory name does not
begin with a slash, then the directories listed in CDPATH will be
searched for the specified directory. The format of CDPATH is the
same as that of PATH. In an interactive shell, the cd command
will print out the name of the directory that it actually switched
to if this is different from the name that the user gave. These
may be different either because the CDPATH mechanism was used or
because a symbolic link was crossed.
. file
The commands in the specified file are read and executed by the
shell. A path search is not done to find the file because the
directories in PATH generally contain files that are intended to
be executed, not read.
eval string...
The strings are parsed as shell commands and executed. (This dif-
fers from the System V shell, which concatenates the arguments
(separated by spaces) and parses the result as a single command.)
exec [ command arg... ]
Unless command is omitted, the shell process is replaced with the
specified program (which must be a real program, not a shell
builtin or function). Any redirections on the exec command are
marked as permanent, so that they are not undone when the exec
command finishes. If the command is not found, the exec command
causes the shell to exit.
exit [ exitstatus ]
Terminate the shell process. If exitstatus is given it is used as
the exit status of the shell; otherwise the exit status of the
preceding command is used.
export name...
The specified names are exported so that they will appear in the
environment of subsequent commands. The only way to un-export a
variable is to unset it. Ash allows the value of a variable to be
set at the same time it is exported by writing
export name=value
With no arguments the export command lists the names of all
exported variables.
fg [ job ]
Move the specified job or the current job to the foreground. This
command is only available on systems with Bekeley job control.
getopts optstring var
The System V getopts command.
hash -rv command...
The shell maintains a hash table which remembers the locations of
commands. With no arguments whatsoever, the hash command prints
out the contents of this table. Entries which have not been
looked at since the last cd command are marked with an asterisk;
it is possible for these entries to be invalid.
With arguments, the hash command removes the specified commands
from the hash table (unless they are functions) and then locates
them. With the -v option, hash prints the locations of the com-
mands as it finds them. The -r option causes the hash command to
delete all the entries in the hash table except for functions.
jobid [ job ]
Print the process id's of the processes in the job. If the job
argument is omitted, use the current job.
jobs
This command lists out all the background processes which are
children of the current shell process.
lc [ function-name ]
The function name is defined to execute the last command entered.
If the function name is omitted, the last command executed is exe-
cuted again. This command only works if the -i flag is set.
pwd
Print the current directory. The builtin command may differ from
the program of the same name because the builtin command remembers
what the current directory is rather than recomputing it each
time. This makes it faster. However, if the current directory is
renamed, the builtin version of pwd will continue to print the old
name for the directory.
read [ -p prompt ] [ -e ] variable...
The prompt is printed if the -p option is specified and the stan-
dard input is a terminal. Then a line is read from the standard
input. The trailing newline is deleted from the line and the line
is split as described in the section on word splitting above, and
the pieces are assigned to the variables in order. If there are
more pieces than variables, the remaining pieces (along with the
characters in IFS that separated them) are assigned to the last
variable. If there are more variables than pieces, the remaining
variables are assigned the null string.
The -e option causes any backslashes in the input to be treated
specially. If a backslash is followed by a newline, the backslash
and the newline will be deleted. If a backslash is followed by
any other character, the backslash will be deleted and the follow-
ing character will be treated as though it were not in IFS, even
if it is.
readonly name...
The specified names are marked as read only, so that they cannot
be subsequently modified or unset. Ash allows the value of a
variable to be set at the same time it is marked read only by
writing
readonly name=value
With no arguments the readonly command lists the names of all read
only variables.
set [ { -options | +options | -- } ] arg...
The set command performs three different functions.
With no arguments, it lists the values of all shell variables.
If options are given, it sets the specified option flags, or
clears them if the option flags are introduced with a + rather
than a -. Only the first argument to set can contain options.
The possible options are:
-e Causes the shell to exit when a command terminates with a
nonzero exit status, except when the exit status of the com-
mand is explicitly tested. The exit status of a command is
considered to be explicitly tested if the command is used to
control an if, elif, while, or until; or if the command is the
left hand operand of an ``&&'' or ``||'' operator.
-f Turn off file name generation.
-I Cause the shell to ignore end of file conditions. (This
doesn't apply when the shell a script sourced using the ``.''
command.) The shell will in fact exit if it gets 50 eof's in
a row.
-i Make the shell interactive. This causes the shell to prompt
for input, to trap interrupts, to ignore quit and terminate
signals, and to return to the main command loop rather than
exiting on error.
-j Turns on Berkeley job control, on systems that support it.
When the shell starts up, the -j is set by default if the -i
flag is set.
-n Causes the shell to read commands but not execute them. (This
is marginally useful for checking the syntax of scripts.)
-s If this flag is set when the shell starts up, the shell reads
commands from its standard input. The shell doesn't examine
the value of this flag any other time.
-x If this flag is set, the shell will print out each command
before executing it.
-z If this flag is set, the file name generation process may gen-
erate zero files. If it is not set, then a pattern which does
not match any files will be replaced by a quoted version of
the pattern.
The third use of the set command is to set the values of the
shell's positional parameters to the specified args. To change
the positional parameters without changing any options, use ``--''
as the first argument to set. If no args are present, the set
command will leave the value of the positional parameters
unchanged, so to set the positional parameters to set of values
that may be empty, execute the command
shift $#
first to clear out the old values of the positional parameters.
setvar variable value
Assigns value to variable. (In general it is better to write
variable=value rather than using setvar. Setvar is intended to be
used in functions that assign values to variables whose names are
passed as parameters.)
shift [ n ]
Shift the positional parameters n times. A shift sets the value
of $1 to the value of $2, the value of $2 to the value of $3, and
so on, decreasing the value of $# by one. If there are zero posi-
tional parameters, shifting doesn't do anything.
trap [ action ] signal...
Cause the shell to parse and execute action when any of the speci-
fied signals are received. The signals are specified by signal
number. Action may be null or omitted; the former causes the
specified signal to be ignored and the latter causes the default
action to be taken. When the shell forks off a subshell, it
resets trapped (but not ignored) signals to the default action.
The trap command has no effect on signals that were ignored on
entry to the shell.
umask [ mask ]
Set the value of umask (see umask(2)) to the specified octal
value. If the argument is omitted, the umask value is printed.
unset name...
The specified variables and functions are unset and unexported.
If a given name corresponds to both a variable and a function,
both the variable and the function are unset.
wait [ job ]
Wait for the specified job to complete and return the exit status
of the last process in the job. If the argument is omitted, wait
for all jobs to complete and the return an exit status of zero.
EXAMPLES
The following function redefines the cd command:
cd() {
if bltin cd "$@"
thenif test -f .enter
then. .enter
elsereturn 0
fi
fi
}
This function causes the file ``.enter'' to be read when you enter a
directory, if it exists. The bltin command is used to access the real
cd command. The ``return 0'' ensures that the function will return an
exit status of zero if it successfully changes to a directory that does
not contain a ``.enter'' file. Redefining existing commands is not
always a good idea, but this example shows that you can do it if you
want to.
The suspend function distributed with ash looks like
# Copyright (C) 1989 by Kenneth Almquist. All rights reserved.
# This file is part of ash, which is distributed under the terms
# specified by the Ash General Public License.
suspend() {
local -
set +j
kill -TSTP 0
}
This turns off job control and then sends a stop signal to the current
process group, which suspends the shell. (When job control is turned
on, the shell ignores the TSTP signal.) Job control will be turned
back on when the function returns because ``-'' is local to the func-
tion. As an example of what not to do, consider an earlier version of
suspend:
suspend() {
suspend_flag=$-
set +j
kill -TSTP 0
set -$suspend_flag
}
There are two problems with this. First, suspend_flag is a global
variable rather than a local one, which will cause problems in the
(unlikely) circumstance that the user is using that variable for some
other purpose. Second, consider what happens if shell received an
interrupt signal after it executes the first set command but before it
executes the second one. The interrupt signal will abort the shell
function, so that the second set command will never be executed and job
control will be left off. The first version of suspend avoids this
problem by turning job control off only in a local copy of the shell
options. The local copy of the shell options is discarded when the
function is terminated, no matter how it is terminated.
HINTS
Shell variables can be used to provide abbreviations for things which
you type frequently. For example, I set
export h=$HOME
in my .profile so that I can type the name of my home directory simply
by typing ``$h''.
When writing shell procedures, try not to make assumptions about what
is imported from the environment. Explicitly unset or initialize all
variables, rather than assuming they will be unset. If you use cd, it
is a good idea to unset CDPATH.
People sometimes use ``<&-'' or ``>&-'' to provide no input to a com-
mand or to discard the output of a command. A better way to do this is
to redirect the input or output of the command to /dev/null.
Word splitting and file name generation are performed by default, and
you have to explicitly use double quotes to suppress it. This is back-
wards, but you can learn to live with it. Just get in the habit of
writing double quotes around variable and command substitutions, and
omit them only when you really want word splitting and file name gener-
ation. If you want word splitting but not file name generation, use
the -f option.
AUTHORS
Kenneth Almquist
SEE ALSO
echo(1), expr(1), line(1), pwd(1), true(1).
BUGS
When command substitution occurs inside a here document, the commands
inside the here document are run with their standard input closed. For
example, the following will not word because the standard input of the
line command will be closed when the command is run:
cat <<-!
Line 1: $(line)
Line 2: $(line)
!
Unsetting a function which is currently being executed may cause
strange behavior.
The shell syntax allows a here document to be terminated by an end of
file as well as by a line containing the terminator word which follows
the ``<<''. What this means is that if you mistype the terminator
line, the shell will silently swallow up the rest of your shell script
and stick it in the here document.
ASH(1)