Shell Papers, E-books and Tutorials

There is no really outstanding online shell books or tutorials.  There are some average and one good. Among free tutorials you should look at one from Digital Unix. The best open book is Learning Korn Shell  (available on CD in HTML format from O'Reilly). The second edition is probably the best into/intermediate book for ksh88.

The third edition is only good (and is definitely less impressive then the second, ksh88 oriented edition) intro/intermediate coverage of  ksh93. This is now a problem with many O'Reilly books: the original authors lost interest in the subject or retired, and "hired guns" cannot produce the same quality and adequate update of the material. 

There is also a similar book devoted to bash Learning the Bash Shell also available on CD, but it is also weaker then the second edition of  Learning Korn Shell .  Generally it is highly recommended to get O'Reilly Unix bookshelf CD. The third edition contains one excellent, one good and two average books:

**** Unix Power Tools, 3rd Edition;

??? Learning the Unix Operating System, 5th Edition;

??? Learning the vi Editor, 6th Edition;

??? Mac OS X for Unix Geeks;

***** Learning the Korn Shell, 2nd Edition;

*** sed & awk, 2nd Edition;

*** Unix in a Nutshell, 3rd Edition.

If you need to learn ksh you probably will be better off buying a good into book for the OS you are using that using online material in addition to an online book mentioned above. For example for Solaris one can use A Practical Guide to Solaris, for Linux A Practical Guide to Red Hat Linux 8 (but do not buy more recent Fedora-based edition,  as it lucks the reference section).  Both are pretty cheap now on Amazon.

Learning shell involves learning a lot of Unix utilities and such a book can save you time and is a definitely better learning path than any "pure shell" offerings. 

Again learning shell means also learning classic Unix utilities and that a separate large area of study that should not be overlooked neither by the student nor teachers of the into shell courses.  See Softpanorama University Classic Unix Tools Page and Pipes -- powerful and elegant programming paradigm

Good luck with your shell classes and remember that selection of right teacher is half of the success ;-)

Dr. Nikolai Bezroukov

NEWS CONTENTS

• 20080404 : Bash Guide for Beginners by Machtelt Garrels ( Bash Guide for Beginners, Apr 4, 2008 )
• 20070822 : LPI exam 102 prep: Shells, scripting, programming, and compiling ( LPI exam 102 prep: Shells, scripting, programming, and compiling, Aug 22, 2007 )
• 20070214 : oreilly.com -- Online Catalog Learning the bash Shell, Third Edition ( oreilly.com -- Online Catalog Learning the bash Shell, Third Edition, Feb 14, 2007 )
• 20070214 : Unix Power Tools, Third Edition ( Unix Power Tools, Third Edition, Feb 14, 2007 )
• 20050325 : Unix shell scripting with sh-ksh ( Unix shell scripting with sh-ksh, Mar 25, 2005 )
• 20050325 : Korn Shell (ksh) Programming ( Korn Shell (ksh) Programming, )
• 20050325 : Rc � The Plan 9 Shell ( Rc � The Plan 9 Shell, )
• 20050325 : Learning Red Hat Linux, 2nd Edition Chapter 13 Advanced Shell Usage and Shell Scripts ( Learning Red Hat Linux, 2nd Edition Chapter 13 Advanced Shell Usage and Shell Scripts, )
• 19990615 : Idaho State University Basic UNIX Tutorial ( Idaho State University Basic UNIX Tutorial, Jun 15, 1999 )
• 19981117 : Shell Quoting Guidelines V 1.2 by Tim Maher
  ( Shell Quoting Guidelines V 1.2, Nov 17, 1998 )
• 19981117 : How to write a shell script ( How to write a shell script, Nov 17, 1998 )
• 19981117 : Old possibly broken links ( )
• 19981117 : Corey Dunhams Unix Script ( Corey Dunham's Unix Script, )
• 19981117 : NSCP - Unix Shells ( NSCP - Unix Shells, )
• 19981117 : Contents ( )

Old News ;-)

[Apr 4, 2008] Bash Guide for Beginners by Machtelt Garrels

Table of Contents

Introduction

1. Bash and Bash scripts

2. Writing and debugging scripts

3. The Bash environment

4. Regular expressions

5. The GNU sed stream editor

6. The GNU awk programming language

7. Conditional statements

8. Writing interactive scripts

9. Repetitive tasks

10. More on variables

11. Functions

12. Catching signals

A. Shell Features

B. GNU Free Documentation License

Glossary

Index

[Aug 22, 2007] LPI exam 102 prep: Shells, scripting, programming, and compiling,"

[Feb 14, 2007] oreilly.com -- Online Catalog Learning the bash Shell, Third Edition

• Chapter 4: Basic Shell Programming (PDF Format)

[Feb 14, 2007] Unix Power Tools, Third Edition

• Saving Time on the Command Line Chapter 28 of Unix power tools (PDF Format)
• Examples from Unix Power Tools, Third Edition

[Mar 25, 2005] Unix shell scripting with sh-ksh

Course Handout: (last update 21 March 2005) by Richard Brittain, Dartmouth College Computing Services. Available as separate Web pages and one document. the latter can serve as a good reference.

Copyright status: Permission is granted to download and use these notes and example scripts, as long as all copyright notices are kept intact. Some of the examples are taken from texts or online resources which have granted permission to redistribute. Contents:

1.	What is a shell script
2.	Why use shell scripts
3.	History
4.	Feature comparison
5.	Other scripting languages
6.	ksh/bash vs sh
7.	Basics
8.	Filename Wildcards
9.	Variables
10.	Preset Variables
11.	Arguments
12.	Shell options
13.	Command substitution
14.	I/O redirection and pipelines
15.	Input and output
16.	Conditional Tests
17.	Conditional Tests (contd.)
18.	Flow control
19.	Flow control (contd.)
20.	Conditional test examples
21.	Miscellaneous
22.	Manipulating Variables
23.	Functions
24.	Advanced I/O
25.	Wizard I/O
26.	Coprocesses
27.	Signals
28.	Security
29.	Style
30.	Examples
31.	Common external commands
32.	References

Korn Shell (ksh) Programming

• Before you start: Basic skills you need.
• Ksh Basics: Loops and conditions.
• Advanced variable operators: Read This. Yes, you.
• POSIX.1 utilities: Externally usable tools on most UNIXen
• Functions: Just like in "regular" programming languages
• Built-in functions: Integrated commands that run fast.
• Redirection and pipes: Joining things together
• Interesting stuff: The 'Misc' page
• Paranoia and good programming: Be a good programmer!
• Real code: A useful program done wrong, and then done right.

Rc � The Plan 9 Shell a very interesting paper. Must read.

Learning Red Hat Linux, 2nd Edition Chapter 13 Advanced Shell Usage and Shell Scripts

Nicely written chapter with a lot of tips useful for beginners.

Using the UNIX Platform on the Rensselaer Computing System (RCS) Memo RPI.113 Academic Computing Services, June 2001

Linux.com Learn HOWTOs - Advanced Bash-Scripting HOWTO by Mendel Cooper --Advanced Bash-Scripting HOWTO: A guide to shell scripting, using Bash. Nice tutorial

The Solaris 2.7 Common Desktop Environment: Desktop KornShell User's Guide Answerbook is available online (the dtksh is a ksh93 with Motif extensions).

{***+} Bourne Shell Programming by Robert Sayle Online book. Pretty good.[link updated Jan 29, 2000. ]

Bourne Shell Programming teaches UNIX users how to harness the power of the shell. The book assumes that the reader has at least a general knowledge of UNIX including its commands, syntax, and operation. It also assumes that the reader also understands simple programming techniques inherent to most programming languages. The book does not provide instruction on the basics of UNIX. It instead builds upon these basics by showing how to combine them with the shell's programming facilities. The goal is to train users to employ these techniques at both the command line and within scripts so that the operating system becomes a tool instead of a hindrance.

This book was written over the course of a number of years mainly because the author switched career paths. The change consequently resulted in a text tested against two different versions of UNIX. Some examples are shown in Sun Solaris 2.4 while others are given from Linux Slackware 3.2. Readers are cautioned to check their local operating system's manual pages on any command demonstrated for proper syntax and operation.

The author realizes he is prone to error and respectfully requests any corrections be forwarded by email. Suggestions on improving this book are also welcome as are offers to publish it through traditional channels.

For notes on the format of this book, the reader is directed to the conventions listed in the book's foreword.

This book was derived from a class created and presented at ARINC Inc, Newport Beach, CA.

• Shell Basics

• Scripting Basics

• Variables

• Functions

• Branching

• Looping

• Command Options

• Advanced Topics

• Debugging Scripts

AIX Bourne shell tutorial from UCF Computer Services AIX on-line manual. There are several mirrors for AIX docs online AIX Version 4.3 System User's Guide Operating System and Devices see also mirror About This Guide

[Jun 15, 1999] Idaho State University Basic UNIX Tutorial -- good; not only potato can grow in Idaho :-)

[Nov 17, 1998] Shell Quoting Guidelines V 1.2 by Tim Maher

[Nov 17, 1998] How to write a shell script

Old possibly broken links

• Corey Dunham's Unix Script

• NSCP - Unix Shells

• 9403 Shell Games

• Working in the UNIX Shell Environment (VTAIX Guide)

• Knowledge Base - In Unix what is chsh and how do I use it to change my shell

• Dr. Barlow's UNIX Book - Chapter 5

• Dr. Barlow's UNIX Book - Chapter 6 Part 1

• Pipes and Job Control

• Changing your login session's look and feel using aliases and configuration files

• Basic Unix Commands

• UNIX System Administration Reference Card

• korn shell tutorial

• Unix Commands

Overview Documentation for Bash

This is an outdated documentation for bash 1.14 available from many places on the Internet.

Advanced Bash Scripting Guide

The Advanced Bash Scripting Guide is both a reference and a tutorial on shell scripting. This comprehensive book (the equivalent of about 646 print pages) covers almost every aspect of shell scripting. It contains over 300 profusely commented illustrative examples, and a number of tables.

Not just a shell scripting tutorial, this book also provides an introduction to basic programming techniques, such as sorting and recursion. It is well suited for either individual study or classroom use.

>UNIX Shell Programming

UNIX Bourne Shell Programming contains a good introduction to the Bourne Shell and has a chapter about KSH Programming, too. download Zip-archive with the book (116 KB).

Contents

I. INTRODUCTION

1. BOURNESHELL OVERVIEW
2. USER SHELL AND READ-ONLY SHELL VARIABLES
3. POSITIONAL PARAMETERS
4. CONTROL CONSTRUCTS
5. COMPILING PROGRAMS IN UNIX.
6. UNIX TOOLS.
7. VAX DCL TO UNIX SHELL SCRIPT CONVERSION.
8. ADVANCED FEATURES OF FTP.
9. OPTIONAL CHAPTER - KORNSHELL PROGRAMMING.

APPENDIXES A - sh B - test C - expr D - ftp E - cc F - f77 G - lint H - cb I - ar J - time K - ksh

• UXP/V User's Guide -- contains good Shell Tutorial (Copyright FUJITSU LIMITED 1997)
• **+ Writing UNIX Scripts - Based on An Introduction to Shell Programming by: Reg Quinton Computing
• Bourne Shell The Syntax - USail
• UNIX Shell Script Tutorials & Reference --short tutorial. Good.

  Quick lessons on shell programming

  Korn Shell Script Course Notes

  • Redirection

  kshengine.html

• **+ Shell Tutorial -- Chapter 11 of the UXP/V User's Guide V10
• Basic UNIX Tutorial
• How to write a shell script -- very short outline. Communications Services The University of Western Ontario London, Ontario N6A 5B7 Canada
• *+ ONLINE UNIX SHELL PROGRAMMING Course Cochise College (Arizona) -- just notes
• Book Practical Reusable UNIX Software (contains links to ksh93 and a couple fragments, see below):
  • Foreword by Dennis Ritchie
  • Historical Overview

University Courses

• Unix shell scripting with sh-ksh Course Handout: (last update 21 March 2005) by Richard Brittain, Dartmouth College Computing Services. Available as separate Web pages and one document. the latter can serve as a good reference. Copyright status: Permission is granted to download and use these notes and example scripts, as long as all copyright notices are kept intact. Some of the examples are taken from texts or online resources which have granted permission to redistribute.
  Contents:

  1.	What is a shell script
  2.	Why use shell scripts
  3.	History
  4.	Feature comparison
  5.	Other scripting languages
  6.	ksh/bash vs sh
  7.	Basics
  8.	Filename Wildcards
  9.	Variables
  10.	Preset Variables
  11.	Arguments
  12.	Shell options
  13.	Command substitution
  14.	I/O redirection and pipelines
  15.	Input and output
  16.	Conditional Tests
  17.	Conditional Tests (contd.)
  18.	Flow control
  19.	Flow control (contd.)
  20.	Conditional test examples
  21.	Miscellaneous
  22.	Manipulating Variables
  23.	Functions
  24.	Advanced I/O
  25.	Wizard I/O
  26.	Coprocesses
  27.	Signals
  28.	Security
  29.	Style
  30.	Examples
  31.	Common external commands
  32.	References

• Shell Scripts and Awk on the CUED Teaching System by Tim Love [email protected], last updated November 1999 Main Page in Cambridge University Engineering Department, University of Cambridge. Free for private and non-commercial use only

  • Contents
  • Shell Programming
  • Input/Output and Redirection
  • Shell Variables, Aliases and Functions
  • Some useful shell and Unix commands
  • Exercises
  • Answers to examples
  • Customizing
  • Shell Creation
  • Features and Speed-ups
  • Awk
  • About this document ...

• Unix Shell Scripting - Indiana.edu (from Unix Workstation System Administration Education Certification online course)
  
• Korn Shell Script Course Notes -- The Australian National University. See also Computing information menu and Korn shell. Other online manuals are also available from this site. See http://cres20.anu.edu.au/manuals/
  
• WindowsUnix ksh notes for Computing Science Workstations
• The Unix Shell
• INTRODUCTION TO UNIX
  • The UNIX Shell
  • Shell Script Programming Language
  • Exercise 3 Shell programming
• Technical Briefs - ROHAN help Files - shell

Tutorials

LPI exam 102 prep: Shells, scripting, programming, and compiling

Bash Guide for Beginners by Machtelt Garrels

Table of Contents

Introduction

1. Bash and Bash scripts

2. Writing and debugging scripts

3. The Bash environment

4. Regular expressions

5. The GNU sed stream editor

6. The GNU awk programming language

7. Conditional statements

8. Writing interactive scripts

9. Repetitive tasks

10. More on variables

11. Functions

12. Catching signals

A. Shell Features

B. GNU Free Documentation License

Glossary

Index

Recommended Articles and Book Chapters

• ***** The new Korn Shell -- ksh93 by by David G. Korn, Charles J. Northrup, and Jeffery Korn The paper provides a concise feature list of ksh93. The paper is authored by the authors of ksh93.

• href="http://www.oreilly.com/catalog/korn2/chapter/ch04.html"> Chapter 4: Basic Shell Programming from Learning the Korn Shell, 2nd Edition

• Learning Red Hat Linux, 2nd Edition Chapter 13 Advanced Shell Usage and Shell Scripts -- nicely written chapter with a lot of tips useful for beginners.
  

• Shelldorado (a very useful site, highly recommended)

• Good Shell Coding Practices Part 1: Handling Command Line Arguments. by Heiner STEVEN <[email protected]> the author of famous Shelldorado site
• Good Shell Coding Practices Part2. Temporary files and signal handling
• Sending files as Mail Attachments -- very good !

• Daniel Robbins' three-part series on bash programming on developerWorks: Part 1, Part 2, and Part 3.
• Tower Floor -- Shell Scripts by Anthony Thyssen. Includes collection of tips including shell tips, awk and sed tips.
• The Toolman Home Page by Daniel E. "Toolman" Singer. Toolman is a series of articles appearing in the USENIX Association's ;login: magazine. The articles present programs that exemplify a tool approach to dealing with day�to�day computer activities.
• The Ignorant's Guide to Shell Programming
• Shell Tips & Tricks
• Taking Shell Scripts Beyond Simple Batch Functionality by Emmet Dulaney's -- interactive use of shell
• Shell Programming -- a lot of tips
• Shell Quoting Guideline
• Command line psychology 101 - SunWorld - February 1998
• Patterns for Scripted Components
• A survey of Unix shells
• UnixShellPatterns by DavidCymbala
  
• The New KornShell David Korn, Jeffrey Korn, Charles Northrup (reprinted from the Linux Journal 6/96) -- contains overview of new features in ksh93. It seems that ksh93 is influenced by Perl and TCL.
  
• CSH Programming Considered Harmful -- old and controversial article of Perl evangelist. Good example of fundamentalist thinking ;-)
  
• Description of different types of shell

• Bourne Shell Specific Programming
  

• SunWorld articles by Mo Budlong
  • "Shell programming and simple menus" (July 1997):
    • part one
    • part two
  • Quick lessons on shell programming - SunWorld - September 1997
  • Command line psychology 101 - SunWorld - February 1998
  • Sending signals - SunWorld - April 1998
  • Small fry Unix commands can get the job done - SunWorld - May 1998
  • Using find to locate files - June 1997

Examples

Examples from Bash Cookbook

Examples from Learning the bash Shell, 2nd Edition

Examples from Learning the Korn Shell

Examples from Learning the Korn Shell, 2nd Edition (this is actually a weaker book then the first edition)

Examples from Unix Power Tools, Third Edition

Etc

Society

Groupthink : Two Party System as Polyarchy : Corruption of Regulators : Bureaucracies : Understanding Micromanagers and Control Freaks : Toxic Managers :   Harvard Mafia : Diplomatic Communication : Surviving a Bad Performance Review : Insufficient Retirement Funds as Immanent Problem of Neoliberal Regime : PseudoScience : Who Rules America : Neoliberalism  : The Iron Law of Oligarchy : Libertarian Philosophy

Quotes

War and Peace : Skeptical Finance : John Kenneth Galbraith :Talleyrand : Oscar Wilde : Otto Von Bismarck : Keynes : George Carlin : Skeptics : Propaganda  : SE quotes : Language Design and Programming Quotes : Random IT-related quotes :  Somerset Maugham : Marcus Aurelius : Kurt Vonnegut : Eric Hoffer : Winston Churchill : Napoleon Bonaparte : Ambrose Bierce :  Bernard Shaw : Mark Twain Quotes

Bulletin:

Vol 25, No.12 (December, 2013) Rational Fools vs. Efficient Crooks The efficient markets hypothesis : Political Skeptic Bulletin, 2013 : Unemployment Bulletin, 2010 :  Vol 23, No.10 (October, 2011) An observation about corporate security departments : Slightly Skeptical Euromaydan Chronicles, June 2014 : Greenspan legacy bulletin, 2008 : Vol 25, No.10 (October, 2013) Cryptolocker Trojan (Win32/Crilock.A) : Vol 25, No.08 (August, 2013) Cloud providers as intelligence collection hubs : Financial Humor Bulletin, 2010 : Inequality Bulletin, 2009 : Financial Humor Bulletin, 2008 : Copyleft Problems Bulletin, 2004 : Financial Humor Bulletin, 2011 : Energy Bulletin, 2010 : Malware Protection Bulletin, 2010 : Vol 26, No.1 (January, 2013) Object-Oriented Cult : Political Skeptic Bulletin, 2011 : Vol 23, No.11 (November, 2011) Softpanorama classification of sysadmin horror stories : Vol 25, No.05 (May, 2013) Corporate bullshit as a communication method  : Vol 25, No.06 (June, 2013) A Note on the Relationship of Brooks Law and Conway Law

History:

Fifty glorious years (1950-2000): the triumph of the US computer engineering : Donald Knuth : TAoCP and its Influence of Computer Science : Richard Stallman : Linus Torvalds  : Larry Wall  : John K. Ousterhout : CTSS : Multix OS Unix History : Unix shell history : VI editor : History of pipes concept : Solaris : MS DOS :  Programming Languages History : PL/1 : Simula 67 : C : History of GCC development :  Scripting Languages : Perl history   : OS History : Mail : DNS : SSH : CPU Instruction Sets : SPARC systems 1987-2006 : Norton Commander : Norton Utilities : Norton Ghost : Frontpage history : Malware Defense History : GNU Screen : OSS early history

Classic books:

The Peter Principle : Parkinson Law : 1984 : The Mythical Man-Month :  How to Solve It by George Polya : The Art of Computer Programming : The Elements of Programming Style : The Unix Hater�s Handbook : The Jargon file : The True Believer : Programming Pearls : The Good Soldier Svejk : The Power Elite

Most popular humor pages:

Manifest of the Softpanorama IT Slacker Society : Ten Commandments of the IT Slackers Society : Computer Humor Collection : BSD Logo Story : The Cuckoo's Egg : IT Slang : C++ Humor : ARE YOU A BBS ADDICT? : The Perl Purity Test : Object oriented programmers of all nations : Financial Humor : Financial Humor Bulletin, 2008 : Financial Humor Bulletin, 2010 : The Most Comprehensive Collection of Editor-related Humor : Programming Language Humor : Goldman Sachs related humor : Greenspan humor : C Humor : Scripting Humor : Real Programmers Humor : Web Humor : GPL-related Humor : OFM Humor : Politically Incorrect Humor : IDS Humor : "Linux Sucks" Humor : Russian Musical Humor : Best Russian Programmer Humor : Microsoft plans to buy Catholic Church : Richard Stallman Related Humor : Admin Humor : Perl-related Humor : Linus Torvalds Related humor : PseudoScience Related Humor : Networking Humor : Shell Humor : Financial Humor Bulletin, 2011 : Financial Humor Bulletin, 2012 : Financial Humor Bulletin, 2013 : Java Humor : Software Engineering Humor : Sun Solaris Related Humor : Education Humor : IBM Humor : Assembler-related Humor : VIM Humor : Computer Viruses Humor : Bright tomorrow is rescheduled to a day after tomorrow : Classic Computer Humor

The Last but not Least Technology is dominated by two types of people: those who understand what they do not manage and those who manage what they do not understand ~Archibald Putt. Ph.D

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Last modified: March 12, 2019