How to undo `set -x`?

Question

I typed set -x in terminal.

Now the terminal keeps printing the last command run on top of my output so the command

~]$echo "this is what I see"

returns

+ echo 'this is what I see'
this is what I see

There is no man page for set, how do I turn set -x off?

Answer 1

Use set +x. More information:

$ type set
set is a special shell builtin

Since set is a shell builtin, it is documented in the documentation of your shell.

_{Beware that some systems have man pages for shell builtins, but these man pages are only correct if you're using the default shell. On Linux, you may have man pages that present POSIX commands, which will turn up for shell builtins because there's no man page of a standalone utility to shadow them; these man pages are correct for all Bourne-style shells (dash, bash, *ksh, and even zsh) but typically incomplete.}

See Reading and searching long man pages for tips on searching for a builtin in a long shell man page.

In this case, the answer is the same for all Bourne-style shells. If set -LETTER turns on an option, set +LETTER turns it off. Thus, set +x turns off traces.

The last trace, for the set +x command itself, is not completely avoidable. You can suppress it with { set +x; } 2>/dev/null, but in some shells there's still a trace for the redirection itself. You can avoid a trace for set +x by not running it and instead letting the (sub)shell exit: if it's ok to run the traced command(s) in a subshell, you can use(set -x; command to trace; other command to trace); command that is not traced.

Answer 2

You can stop debugging mode by set +x. See example page

Answer 3

You have enabled debug mode, you need to turn it off.

Extract from the output of help set in the bash shell:

Using + rather than - causes these flags to be turned off.

So type set +x

Answer 4

$ set +x # is the opposite of set -x, and will reverse what you typed.

You can't find a man page just on set, because as you see below:

$ type set

set is a special shell builtin. While documented in the man page for your shell, presuming bash here, you can also get specific documentation with either

$ help set || builtin help set # luckily Bash has builtin help on builtin commands

The manual page on bash or sh is a good read, but it's a little long to sort out. The effective information you needed to un-set your -x is at the end before Exit Status: and reads:

Using + rather than - causes these flags to be turned off. The flags can also be used upon invocation of the shell. The current set of flags may be found in $-. The remaining n ARGs are positional parameters and are assigned, in order, to $1, $2, .. $n. If no ARGs are given, all shell variables are printed.