Pro Bash Programming: Scripting the Linux Shell (Expert's Voice in Linux) by Chris F. A. Johnson

by Chris F.A. Johnson

The bash shell is a complete programming language, not merely a glue to combine external Linux commands. By taking full advantage of shell internals, shell programs can perform as snappily as utilities written in C or other compiled languages. And you will see how, without assuming Unix lore, you can write professional bash 4.0 programs through standard programming techniques.Complete bash coverage Teaches bash as a programming language Helps you master bash 4.0 features -->What you'll learn-->Use the shell to write new utilities and accomplish most programming tasks. Use shell parameter expansion to replace many external commands, making scripts very fast. Learn to avoid many common mistakes that cause scripts to fail. Learn how bash's readline and history libraries can save typing when getting user input. Learn to use features new to bash 4.0. Build shell scripts that get information from the Web. -->Who this book is for-->Beginning Linux and Unix system administrators who want to be in full command of their systems.-->Table of Contents-->Hello, World Your First Shell Program Input, Output, and Throughput Looping and Branching Command-Line Parsing and Expansion Parameters and Variables Shell Functions String Manipulation File Operations and Commands Reserved Words and Builtin Commands Writing Bug-Free Scripts and Debugging the Rest Programming for the Command Line Runtime Configuration Data Processing Scripting the Screen Entry-Level Programming

Genres: Computer Science, Nonfiction, Programming, Technology, Computers

Unknown Binding

First published October 19, 2009

Reviews

[Karla · Rating 1 out of 5]

Jumps around, advances quickly without adequate explanation, and assumes you already know how to operate in vi and bash. I supplemented this with other books (and a lot of googling) that provided a better grounding in bash. Skip this and look for the O’Reilly series or another alternative.

[Ietrio · Rating 2 out of 5]

Another pointless book that adds nothing to the information available online. I can even say it subtracts information. The best part is the phrasing:

> Both print information to the standard output stream, but printf is much more powerful, and echo has its problems.

> You and I know what constitutes a valid variable name, but do your users?

Anyway, a second star for being honest and not calling a Bash book "Linux shell programming" like others.

[Russell · Rating 3 out of 5]

I wasn't expecting a ton from this book since it's not a reference nor is it very lengthy, so I was happy that several of my blindspots were addressed (in addition to clarifying some tricks and custom functions that are bound to save me time in the long-run). Wish I had read it years ago, but could've done without the chapters on grid games and terminal mouse events.