Description:
Shell scripting skills never go out of style. It's the shell that unlocks the real potential of Unix. Shell scripting is essential for Unix users and system administrators-a way to quickly harness and customize the full power of any Unix system. With shell scripts, you can combine the fundamental Unix text and file processing commands to crunch data and automate repetitive tasks. But beneath this simple promise lies a treacherous ocean of variations in Unix commands and standards. Classic Shell Scripting is written to help you reliably navigate these tricky waters.
Writing shell scripts requires more than just a knowledge of the shell language, it also requires familiarity with the individual Unix programs: why each one is there, how to use them by themselves, and in combination with the other programs. The authors are intimately familiar with the tips and tricks that can be used to create excellent scripts, as well as the traps that can make your best effort a bad shell script. With Classic Shell Scripting you'll avoid hours of wasted effort. You'll learn not only write useful shell scripts, but how to do it properly and portably.
The ability to program and customize the shell quickly, reliably, and portably to get the best out of any individual system is an important skill for anyone operating and maintaining Unix or Linux systems. Classic Shell Scripting gives you everything you need to master these essential skills.
Table of Contents:
Foreword
Preface
1. Background
1.1 Unix History
1.2 Software Tools Principles
1.3 Summary2. Getting Started
2.1 Scripting Languages Versus Compiled Languages
2.2 Why Use a Shell Script?
2.3 A Simple Script
2.4 Self-Contained Scripts: The #! First Line
2.5 Basic Shell Constructs
2.6 Accessing Shell Script Arguments
2.7 Simple Execution Tracing
2.8 Internationalization and Localization
2.9 Summary3. Searching and Substitutions
3.1 Searching for Text
3.2 Regular Expressions
3.3 Working with Fields
3.4 Summary4. Text Processing Tools
4.1 Sorting Text
4.2 Removing Duplicates
4.3 Reformatting Paragraphs
4.4 Counting Lines, Words, and Characters
4.5 Printing
4.6 Extracting the First and Last Lines
4.7 Summary5. Pipelines Can Do Amazing Things
5.1 Extracting Data from Structured Text Files
5.2 Structured Data for the Web
5.3 Cheating at Word Puzzles
5.4 Word Lists
5.5 Tag Lists
5.6 Summary6. Variables, Making Decisions, and Repeating Actions
6.1 Variables and Arithmetic
6.2 Exit Statuses
6.3 The case Statement
6.4 Looping
6.5 Functions
6.6 Summary7. Input and Output, Files, and Command Evaluation
7.1 Standard Input, Output, and Error
7.2 Reading Lines with read
7.3 More About Redirections
7.4 The Full Story on printf
7.5 Tilde Expansion and Wildcards
7.6 Command Substitution
7.7 Quoting
7.8 Evaluation Order and eval
7.9 Built-in Commands
7.10 Summary8. Production Scripts
8.1 Path Searching
8.2 Automating Software Builds
8.3 Summary9. Enough awk to Be Dangerous
9.1 The awk Command Line
9.2 The awk Programming Model
9.3 Program Elements
9.4 Records and Fields
9.5 Patterns and Actions
9.6 One-Line Programs in awk
9.7 Statements
9.8 User-Defined Functions
9.9 String Functions
9.10 Numeric Functions
9.11 Summary10. Working with Files
10.1 Listing Files
10.2 Updating Modification Times with touch
10.3 Creating and Using Temporary Files
10.4 Finding Files
10.5 Running Commands: xargs
10.6 Filesystem Space Information
10.7 Comparing Files
10.8 Summary11. Extended Example: Merging User Databases
11.1 The Problem
11.2 The Password Files
11.3 Merging Password Files
11.4 Changing File Ownership
11.5 Other Real-World Issues
11.6 Summary12. Spellchecking
12.1 The spell Program
12.2 The Original Unix Spellchecking Prototype
12.3 Improving ispell and aspell
12.4 A Spellchecker in awk