Merge pull request #359 from dspinellis/bashrc

Add .bashrc recommendation

README.md

@@ -114,6 +114,12 @@ Notes:
 
 - Use `alias` to create shortcuts for commonly used commands. For example, `alias ll='ls -latr'` creates a new alias `ll`.
 
+- Save aliases, shell settings, and functions you commonly use in `~/.bashrc`, and [arrange for login shells to source it](http://superuser.com/a/183980/7106). This will make your setup available in all your shell sessions.
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+- Put the settings of environment variables as well as commands that should be executed when you login in `~/.bash_profile`. Separate configuration will be needed for shells you launch from graphical environment logins and `cron` jobs.
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+- Synchronize your configuration files (e.g `.bashrc` and `.bash_profile`) among various computers with Git.
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 - Understand that care is needed when variables and filenames include whitespace. Surround your Bash variables with quotes, e.g. `"$FOO"`. Prefer the `-0` or `-print0` options to enable null characters to delimit filenames, e.g. `locate -0 pattern | xargs -0 ls -al` or `find / -print0 -type d | xargs -0 ls -al`. To iterate on filenames containing whitespace in a for loop, set your IFS to to be a newline only using `IFS=$'\n'`.
 
 - In Bash scripts, use `set -x` (or the variant `set -v`, which logs raw input, including unexpanded variables and comments) for debugging output. Use strict modes unless you have a good reason not to: Use `set -e` to abort on errors (nonzero exit code). Use `set -u` to detect unset variable usages. Consider `set -o pipefail` too, to on errors within pipes, too (though read up on it more if you do, as this topic is a bit subtle). For more involved scripts, also use `trap` on EXIT or ERR. A useful habit is to start a script like this, which will make it detect and abort on common errors and print a message: