How do I know which shell I am running ?

[crouse]

Question: How do I know which shell I am running ?

The Answer is :

Code: Select all

echo $SHELL

you should get back a result that looks like:

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/bin/bash

...... on a side note..... make sure you CAPITALIZE the the word SHELL in the above command. Otherwise it will probably just return a blank line

yeah..... i did that ! Like 6 times in a row...........

[slacker_nl]

Question: How do I know which shell I am running ?

The Answer is :

Code: Select all

echo $SHELL

you should get back a result that looks like:

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/bin/bash

Not completly true.

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19:52 pts/4 0 wesleys@sinti:/home/wesleys$ bash

Linux sinti 2.6.17-11-generic #2 SMP Fri May 18 23:39:08 UTC 2007 i686 GNU/Linux

19:52:37 pts/4 0 wesleys@sinti:~$ echo $SHELL
/bin/zsh
19:52:39 pts/4 0 wesleys@sinti:~$


This is a better way:

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running_shell=`ps -p $$ | egrep -v "PID|TTY|TIME|CMD" | awk '{print $NF}'`
# OSX processing
running_shell=`echo ${running_shell} | sed -e 's/-//g'`
# Unix/Linux processing
running_shell=`echo $running_shell | sed -e 's/(//g' -e 's/)//g'`
running_shell=`echo $running_shell | awk -F\/ '{print $NF}'`


This code is works for FreeBSD, Solaris, OSX and Linux and is tested with zsh/bash.

[Watael]

well, from the prompt, the better way is to ask:

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echo $0

that will prompt the running program (i.e. the shell you're in)

...from a script, it's not been told to me, so I can't help, I'm still looking forward for forth...

[crouse]

Question: How do I know which shell I am running ?

The Answer is :

Code: Select all

echo $SHELL

you should get back a result that looks like:

Code: Select all

/bin/bash

Not completly true.

Code: Select all

19:52 pts/4 0 wesleys@sinti:/home/wesleys$ bash

Linux sinti 2.6.17-11-generic #2 SMP Fri May 18 23:39:08 UTC 2007 i686 GNU/Linux

19:52:37 pts/4 0 wesleys@sinti:~$ echo $SHELL
/bin/zsh
19:52:39 pts/4 0 wesleys@sinti:~$


This is a better way:

Code: Select all

running_shell=`ps -p $$ | egrep -v "PID|TTY|TIME|CMD" | awk '{print $NF}'`
# OSX processing
running_shell=`echo ${running_shell} | sed -e 's/-//g'`
# Unix/Linux processing
running_shell=`echo $running_shell | sed -e 's/(//g' -e 's/)//g'`
running_shell=`echo $running_shell | awk -F\/ '{print $NF}'`


This code is works for FreeBSD, Solaris, OSX and Linux and is tested with zsh/bash.

hmmmmmmm ok, this thread is pretty ancient, but echo $SHELL does indeed return the default shell, (NOT the version of bash, but your default shell, be it zsh,csh,bash,dash,sh, etc). your return of /bin/zsh is because you have zsh set to be your default shell in your .profile or .bashrc config file. echo $0 returns the running script name..... if the shell isn't running anthing else .. then it returns itself. Your better way, is what I'd call "overkill" ..... but to each his own

[Watael]

default shell is 'assigned' in /etc/passwd, isn't it?