How to reinitialize a terminal window instead of closing it and starting a new one?

Question

When I make some changes to the shell/bash behavior, such as setting up an alias, is there a quick command to reinitialize the terminal window instead of closing and opening a new window?

score 90 · Accepted Answer · edited Feb 13 '19 at 11:53

90

If you mean reloading your .bashrc configuration then:

source ~/.bashrc

For less typing, you can replace source with a dot: . ~/.bashrc

edited Feb 13 '19 at 11:53

Community

1

answered Jan 02 '11 at 22:18

narkisr

1,171

2

Here is a question, how does this behave differently than source ~/.bashrc ? – crasic Jan 03 '11 at 05:49
It doesn't. Looking at the bash man page you will see that the commands are listed as equivalent. – Carsten Thiel Jan 03 '11 at 13:44
4

source is a specific to bash. . is more standard. Both work the same in bash. – Michael Terry Jan 27 '11 at 18:36
3

This just reloads your PATH and some environment variables. It doesn't "reset" anything. @NES's answer is the correct one. – Cerin Jun 12 '17 at 01:46
12

This doesn't reset anything, if you had updates to your PATH you'll now have your old updates and new updates. – Constantin Aug 08 '18 at 15:33
2

For anyone looking for an actual solution because this is not at all the same as closing and starting a new one. Everything that was exported to the env will still be there. The answer of @isarandi is what you might be looking for. – Stefan Fabian Mar 22 '20 at 18:32

score 65 · Answer 2 · edited Dec 18 '17 at 17:07

65

Some Addition i found in the manpage from the reset/tset command

tset reset terminal intialization

command: reset

Tset initializes terminals. Tset first determines the type of terminal that you are using. This determination is done as follows, using the first terminal type found.

an advantage seems to be, that it's independent from the used shell. also works with fish here.

So to reinitialize any terminal just do-

$ tset

OR

$ reset

edited Dec 18 '17 at 17:07

sziraqui

645

answered Jan 03 '11 at 11:37

NES

33,195

4

Unfortunately this is also wrong. It does not reset existing environment variables. – isarandi Mar 28 '19 at 07:25
1

I think the full answer would be tput reset && source ~/.profile. – Mikko Rantalainen Oct 20 '21 at 10:28
Nice! It worked for me! – Edher Carbajal Jan 24 '24 at 01:55

score 13 · Answer 3 · edited Nov 03 '12 at 01:05

13

An additional option to the exec bash is that if you changed your .profile (or .bash_profile), you can do

$ exec bash --login

That will read your profile again as well. It wouldn't hurt to add the -i option as well to explicitly tell bash that this is an interactive shell, but it can normally figure that out for itself.

edited Nov 03 '12 at 01:05

Kyle Macey

1,679

answered Apr 07 '12 at 17:40

Tony Ledford

147

for me it works without exec too – Armen Sanoyan Dec 10 '17 at 15:52
2

Unfortunately wrong as well. Already set environment variables are still there and aren't reset. – isarandi Mar 28 '19 at 07:26
3

@ArmenSanoyan but that would create a new chile process, with the shell calling bash --login as its parent. Using exec bash --login will replace the current shell, as explained in man bash – hashlash Dec 19 '20 at 07:04
@isarandi I've found that using exec -c bash --login, the command will be executed with an empty environment. But it seems that some important env vars are not reinitialized, which makes my ~/.bashrc not executed. I think the problem lies in how the initial env vars passed to the ~/.profile script – hashlash Dec 19 '20 at 08:09
@ArmenSanoyan: Without exec, the original bash stays running as the parent of this process, and hitting control-D in the new shell will exit back to that shell. – Peter Cordes Jun 16 '21 at 10:58
@PeterCordes Sure, but are there any practical drawbacks to that? For all intents and purposes, we are in a "new shell", even if it is running in the old one – information_interchange Jul 21 '21 at 14:47
1

@information_interchange: the old bash is still sitting around in the process list (and waste a few MiB of RAM, which is trivial these days on desktops). And when you eventually exit (or control-d) out of that shell much later, the terminal window / tab won't close and you'll be wondering if it didn't work. – Peter Cordes Jul 21 '21 at 17:06
exec -c bash --login gets me in a weird colorless shell that for some reason also explains me how the sudo command works. Sourcing .profile or .bashrc does nothing afterwards. – Mark Jeronimus Mar 02 '23 at 15:12

isarandi · Answer 4 · 2020-04-13T13:11:09.453

12

Use exec sudo --login --user $USER.

If you also want the previously entered commands to disapper (full reset of the terminal), combine it with reset as reset; exec sudo --login --user $USER.

To keep the current working directory as well, use the following function:

reinit(){
  reset
  exec sudo --login --user "$USER" /bin/sh -c "cd '$PWD'; exec '$SHELL' -l"
}

There are many answers around the web but most don't actually work. Easy way to test is to set export SOMEVAR=42 then execute the supposedly resetting command and do echo $SOMEVAR. If it's 42, the environment was not reset.

There is also exec -c bash -l or exec env -i bash -l, but these are broken, somehow the $HOME variable is not set after this.

edited Apr 13 '20 at 13:11

answered Mar 28 '19 at 07:38

isarandi

387
3
10

To keep the current directory as well: exec sudo --login --user $USER sh -c 'cd '"$PWD"'; bash' – Martin Valgur Apr 12 '20 at 19:22
1

Thanks, that's useful. See my edit, which does not assume bash and uses -l to ensure a login shell and uses exec so there are no nested shells. – isarandi Apr 13 '20 at 13:13
best answer! Strangely though the PATH is not exactly the same as from a fresh terminal... – brice rebsamen Jul 31 '20 at 00:08

score 10 · Answer 5 · edited Aug 11 '12 at 03:53

10

You have to replace the running application/shell with a new instance. E.g. if you are using bash as your preferred shell type the following line in your command line ($ is the placeholder for the beginning of your command line):

> $ exec bash

The running application/shell is replaced by new instance of bash like starting from scratch. All your previous modification are gone.

Remark: Do not forget that your terminal application may be reprogrammed. You have to reset your terminal application manually.

edited Aug 11 '12 at 03:53

Eliah Kagan

117,780

answered Jan 03 '11 at 13:37

Raphael Bossek

440

2

What do you mean by "reprogrammed"? – Eliah Kagan Aug 11 '12 at 03:53
3

This answer is also wrong. exec inherits the environment from its predecessor. Hence it does not restore environment variables. Some may be reloaded by running a new bash but those that are not overwritten are not removed. – Stefan Fabian Mar 22 '20 at 18:24

score 0 · Answer 6 · edited Apr 13 '20 at 20:32

0

Use the terminal's functions clear or screen.

edited Apr 13 '20 at 20:32

K7AAY

17,202

answered Apr 13 '20 at 14:32

Nate

530

score 0 · Answer 7 · answered Jan 25 '23 at 21:29

0

On Ubuntu at least, . ~/.profile is better than . ~/.bashrc, because the .profile file also sources the .bashrc file, and it brings in other dirs, such as ~/bin to your PATH if those dirs exist.

answered Jan 25 '23 at 21:29

Gabriel Staples

9,155

score 0 · Answer 8 · answered Jan 02 '11 at 23:45

0

your shell is an executable you can call. So if you're using bash you can call bash and if you're using something else like zsh you can just enter zsh

answered Jan 02 '11 at 23:45

Rick

3,647

This was my thought as well, but I am worried that there will be some issues – information_interchange Jul 21 '21 at 14:46
this will create another zsh session in an already existing one which is not happening in case of exec zsh – Aram Sep 02 '21 at 08:30

How to reinitialize a terminal window instead of closing it and starting a new one?

8 Answers8