.bashrc help

[benartley]

Dear all,
I hope this is posted in the right place - I'm a new user.
I have very recently started using redhat in a tcsh shell and would like to try the bash shell too.
What I would like to do is create a .bashrc file so that my aliases etc are introduced at startup (when I type bash -l in the tcsh shell)
My question is: can I just copy the .cshrc file in my home/usr folder to a .bashrc file?
What do I have to change for this to be recognised?
Am I even doing the right thing here? - All I want is to use the permanent aliases I have in the tcsh shell in the bash shell.
Thank you in advance

Ben

[Rubberman]

The file ~/.bashrc (the one in your user home directory) is automatically loaded whenever a bash shell is started. The file ~/.bash_profile is executed whenever a login shell is started. Aliases need to be reset whenever a shell is started, so you should put them in ~/.bashrc. However, setting exported environment variables should be done in ~/.bash_profile because exports will be propagated to subshells as well as being set at login. In any case, you should probably get a decent book on bash programming. O'Reilly's Nutshell series has a good one on bash programming that you can get from Amazon, or at most any decent book store, such as Borders or B&N.

[benartley]

Dear Rubberman,
Thanks very much, actually I don't have a .bashrc file in my home directory only a .cshrc file, since the shell I am using is a tcsh shell.
However if I just run the bash shell from it, i.e typing bash into the tcsh shell - can I just write a .bashrc shell and place it in the home directory? Could I just copy the cshrc file and rename it?
Thanks

[Rubberman]

You don't want to use the .cshrc file since the syntax for bash and tcsh/csh are very different. However, yes you can create your .bashrc file in your home directory, and if you want to start a login shell from tcsh you can with the --login option which will make it read and execute ~/.bash_profile as well.