Shell programming

Introduction

• The role of the shell.
• Features of different shells.

Command review

• File processing commands: tr, sort, uniq, head, tail and more.
• Command recall.

The vi command

• Using the command and practical tips.

Interactive shell use

• Wildcards.
• Escape characters.
• Overview of special characters.
• Redirection, including >>.
• Pipes.

Shell scripts

• Principles.
• Execution.
• Shebang.
• Shell options.
• Debugging.
• Script design best practices.
• Script structure.

Variables

• Variables: types, creation and advanced manipulation.
• Arrays: initialisation and advanced manipulation.
• Environment customisation files, including profile.

Interactivity

• The read command.
• Passing arguments: $0, $n, $#, $* and more.

Control statements

Aliases and functions

• Alias characteristics.
• Functions: syntax, return and FPATH.

Arithmetic

• expr, let and bc.
• ksh and bash specifics.

Regular expressions

• grep, fgrep and egrep commands.
• Implementing regular expressions.

Character strings

• expr and typeset commands.
• Practical tips.
• Wildcard expressions.

Introduction to sed and awk

Example of a system administration script