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  • Hmm but I don't think this will be any cleaner than sourcing it. Is there a file that both zsh and bash will read? Commented Oct 23, 2010 at 15:38
  • what makes you think that sourcing or creating a symlink is not a "clean" solution? Commented Oct 23, 2010 at 19:40
  • I just meant to say if needed, I'd like to source the file rather than to manage the symlink. I don't want to create a lot of dependency between files. Commented Oct 24, 2010 at 6:24
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    A more portable alternative to /bin/ls -l /proc/$$/exe is ps -o comm= -p $$. This isn't fully reliable because some shells behave differently depending on how they were invoked; in practice simply testing $0 in .profile is likely to be a better indication. But most shells that offer useful features (bash, ksh, zsh) can be simply recognized (and their version identified, which is a big plus) by testing some variables: $BASH, $BASH_VERSION, $BASH_VERSINFO; $KSH_VERSION, ${.sh.version}; $ZSH_VERSION. Commented Nov 20, 2010 at 0:10
  • echox, your case statement does not correctly detect zsh4 #Determine our shell without using $SHELL, which may lie shell="sh" if test -f /proc/mounts; then case $(/bin/ls -l /proc/$$/exe) in bash) shell=bash ;; *dash) shell=dash ;; *ash) shell=ash ;; *ksh) shell=ksh ;; *zsh) shell=zsh ;; #matches zsh4 esac fi Commented Jan 26, 2011 at 19:28