Bash Functions

Internal

• bash

Defintion

Syntax

[function] function-name() {
    ...
}

The "function" keyword is optional.

Arguments

The function does not declare its arguments in the signature. They are available in the function's body as $1, $2, etc.

Exit Status

A bash function does not return a value, it only allows to set an exit status, which is a numerical value. 0 indicates success and a non-zero value indicates failure. The exit status is declared with the "return" keyword:

function f() {
   ...
   return 0
}

The function's caller can retrieve the exist status with $?.