Re: profile of bash

[Bob Proulx]

Ronald wrote:
> Why bash has so many profiles, like
> .bash_login
> .bash_logout
> .bash_profile
> .profile
> .bashrc
> profile
> bashrc
> 
> By design? Why?

It is for legacy support, useful features, compatible capabilities.

The traditional Bourne shell read /etc/profile and $HOME/.profile.  So
does AT&T ksh.  By reading those files bash is compatible.  But
perhaps you want to use both shells and want to use bash extensions?
Therefore bash adds $HOME/.bash_* versions which are specific to bash
and won't be shared with other shells.

Then enter on stage the BSD csh which reads $HOME/.login and
$HOME/.logout.  Bash has a different syntax from csh (thankfully) and
can't share those files.  But to provide similar capability bash reads
$HOME/.bash_login and $HOME/.bash_logout.

Bob