Where can I find historical documentation for bash?

Question

Are there any sources for documentation for old versions of some GNU software, in this case particularly bash?

I have a embedded system that is running bash 3.00.16, and I'm trying to do some shell scripting, and things are not working as expected (no process substitution, apparently).

Furthermore, since this is an embedded system, I don't have man or info, so there is really no help available on the system.

Is there anywhere I can view the documentation for older versions of bash as they were for various releases?

bash 3.0 had process substitution: http://unix.stackexchange.com/questions/49918/when-was-process-substitution-first-introduced/49940#49940. Are you sure you have #!/bin/bash and not #!/bin/sh for your shebang? — jordanm, Dec 17 '12 at 20:32
@jordanm - I was thinking about that. help returns GNU bash, version 3.00.16(2)-release (i486-slackware-linux-gnu) — Fake Name, Dec 17 '12 at 20:48
@jordanm - However, echo <(ls) returns -sh: syntax error near unexpected token \('`. It works on a new machine, though — Fake Name, Dec 17 '12 at 20:49
@jordanm - aaaarrrrgghhhh, I somehow wasn't in bash. This is over SSH. I'm a flaming idiot. — Fake Name, Dec 17 '12 at 20:50
The prompt for sh and bash looks identical on the device, though. I'm used to it having a distinct prompt. — Fake Name, Dec 17 '12 at 20:52

score 5 · Accepted Answer · answered Dec 17 '12 at 20:37

5

The documentation for bash is shipped in the bash-doc tarball. You can view the old versions by downloading the tarball from the GNU Project Archives.

answered Dec 17 '12 at 20:37

jordanm

42,678

Thanks, this was surprisingly hard to find. – Paul Hodges Jan 05 '23 at 14:52
@PaulHodges glad the link still works 10 years later! – jordanm Jan 05 '23 at 15:41

Where can I find historical documentation for bash?

1 Answers1