topic Re: What command to determine the current shell? in Operating System - HP-UX

What command to determine the current shell?

Shawn_45 — Wed, 12 Feb 2003 19:32:53 GMT

I have env variables and aliases in .cshrc but I wonder which file determines what default shell I use upon login?

Shawn

Re: What command to determine the current shell?

Pete Randall — Wed, 12 Feb 2003 19:35:17 GMT

Echo $SHELL

Pete

Re: What command to determine the current shell?

John Poff — Wed, 12 Feb 2003 19:36:18 GMT

Hi,

Your shell is set in /etc/passwd and exec'd when you login.

If you want to see what shell you are running, you can do:

echo $SHELL

[at least in ksh and POSIX sh, I'm not sure about csh].

JP

Re: What command to determine the current shell?

Jeff Schussele — Wed, 12 Feb 2003 19:37:03 GMT

Hi,

#echo $SHELL

Rgds,
Jeff

Re: What command to determine the current shell?

Ken Hubnik_2 — Wed, 12 Feb 2003 19:37:27 GMT

It is usually specifies in the /etc/password file for each user what shell or script to execute at login.

Re: What command to determine the current shell?

James R. Ferguson — Wed, 12 Feb 2003 19:38:20 GMT

Hi Shawn:

A user's default shell for login is defined in '/etc/passwd'.

For the c-shell, 'etc/csh.login' is sourced (read/executed) before '$HOME/.cshrc' and '$HOME/.login'.

Regards!

...JRF...

Re: What command to determine the current shell?

Helen French — Wed, 12 Feb 2003 19:39:05 GMT

Your default shell will be taken from the /etc/passwd file, as set when the account was created. Depend up on that values, it executes the proper profile files from your $HOME directory.

# echo $SHELL will tell you the current shell.

Re: What command to determine the current shell?

Vincent Fleming — Wed, 12 Feb 2003 19:39:18 GMT

By the way, it's the last column in /etc/passwd.

Good luck,

Vince

Re: What command to determine the current shell?

RAC_1 — Wed, 12 Feb 2003 19:39:50 GMT

the shell you use is in /etc/passwd. However you can overide that by putting another shell in your profile.

This will spanwned by your shell in /etc/passwd.

echo $SHELL

Re: What command to determine the current shell?

Shannon Petry — Wed, 12 Feb 2003 19:40:54 GMT

Okay, I can login to a user account who has csh as the default shell.

I need to do something in a loop, so I run
% ksh
% echo $SHELL
/usr/bin/csh

Is there a way to do as the first question asks and get your current shell?

Regards,
Shannon

Re: What command to determine the current shell?

Paul Sperry — Wed, 12 Feb 2003 20:03:10 GMT

#env

and look for ENV=

Re: What command to determine the current shell?

Paul Sperry — Wed, 12 Feb 2003 20:03:39 GMT

#env

and look for SHELL=

Re: What command to determine the current shell?

Pete Randall — Wed, 12 Feb 2003 20:10:20 GMT

Shannon has an excellent point.

I've blindly assumed for years that $SHELL contains your current shell. It seems that that is not the case - it's the shell that you're assigned from /etc/passwd by login.

Hmmmmm!

Pete

Re: What command to determine the current shell?

MANOJ SRIVASTAVA — Wed, 12 Feb 2003 20:10:51 GMT

echo $SHELL

or use a typo like lsls and it will come back saying

sh : lsls not found

/bin/ksh : lsls not found

Manoj Srivastava

Re: What command to determine the current shell?

H.Merijn Brand (procura — Wed, 12 Feb 2003 20:12:32 GMT

All above answers are right, except for one thing: you cannot rely on $SHELL :)

I for one have a tcsh for logon (as all state, the last field in the /etc/passwd file), but I've set my $SHELL environment to /usr/bin/sh for all the obvious reasons.

Fast way to check the last field of /etc/passwd

# grep "^`logname`:" /etc/passwd | sed 's/.*://'

do NOT rely on $LOGNAME, which is easy to overrule.

If you want to know for the /effective/ userid:

# perl -le'print+(getpwuid$>)[8]'

And, heh, that's even shorter than grep/sed, *and* more reliable. Now you've got easyEnjoy, have FUN! H.Merijnctionality *and* fun in one blow :)

and for the /real/ uid:

# perl -le'print+(getpwuid$<)[8]'

Enjoy, have FUN! H.Merijn

Re: What command to determine the current shell?

Shannon Petry — Wed, 12 Feb 2003 20:36:23 GMT

Good call on it not being reliable. As far as I know, it will show your login shell, and never your current shell.

Further, there is no way that I know of to get your "current" shell, only the login shell.

One of them things I always wondered about.. figure it would be set somewhere, but.... maybe just me.

regards,
Shannon

Re: What command to determine the current shell?

Rodney Hills — Wed, 12 Feb 2003 20:59:30 GMT

If you have "lsof", you could do the following-

currshell=`lsof -p $$ | awk '$4=="txt"{print $9}'`

This will give the path to the shell you are running (given by $$).

HTH

-- Rod Hills

Re: What command to determine the current shell?

A. Clay Stephenson — Wed, 12 Feb 2003 21:10:05 GMT

Okay guys, how about this which should work in any shell including csh.

echo $$ | tail -1 | awk '{print $NF}'

Re: What command to determine the current shell?

Leif Halvarsson_2 — Wed, 12 Feb 2003 21:10:48 GMT

Hi,
Try this:

# ps |grep $$
10956 pts/0 0:00 csh
# ksh
# ps |grep $$
10963 pts/0 0:00 ksh
#

Re: What command to determine the current shell?

A. Clay Stephenson — Wed, 12 Feb 2003 22:34:24 GMT

Stupid me: I typed the correct command at my terminal but entered the wrong command on the Forums. It should be: ps -p $$ | tail -1 | awk '{print $NF}'

Since ps -p $$ will only list the current process.