37.3. Bash, version 4

Chet Ramey announced Version 4 of Bash on the 20th of February, 2009. This release has a number of significant new features, as well as some important bugfixes.

Among the new goodies:

37.3.1. Bash, version 4.1

Version 4.1 of Bash, released in May, 2010, was primarily a bugfix update.

37.3.2. Bash, version 4.2

Version 4.2 of Bash, released in February, 2011, contains a number of new features and enhancements, in addition to bugfixes.

Notes

[1]

To be more specific, Bash 4+ has limited support for associative arrays. It's a bare-bones implementation, and it lacks the much of the functionality of such arrays in other programming languages.

[2]

Copyright 1995-2009 by Chester Ramey.

[3]

This only works with pipes and certain other special files.

[4]

But only in conjunction with readline, i.e., from the command-line.

[5]

And while you're at it, consider fixing the notorious piped read problem.