Once upon a time, Les Mikesell <lesmikesell at gmail.com> said: > I think that is still an oversimplification because more than > expansion is involved and the order related to other steps. When does > it do i/o redirection; which things happen before/during starting > subshells/pipes; what if you use 'eval', etc.? Try this: "An Introduction to the UNIX Shell" (by the person who wrote the Bourne shell, on which bash is based): http://people.fas.harvard.edu/~lib113/reference/unix/bourne_shell.pdf Or, the current version of the standard specification of the POSIX shell, which bash implements: http://pubs.opengroup.org/onlinepubs/9699919799/utilities/V3_chap02.html -- Chris Adams <linux at cmadams.net>