Chapter 5. The Shell

IN THIS CHAPTER

The Command Line 108

Standard Input and Standard Output 113

Redirection 116

Pipes 122

Running a Program in the Background 125

kill: Aborting a Background Job 127

Filename Generation/Pathname Expansion 127

Builtins 132

This chapter takes a close look at the shell and explains how to use some of its features. For example, it discusses command line syntax and also describes how the shell processes a command line and initiates execution of a program. The chapter also explains how to redirect input to and output from a command, construct pipes and filters on the command line, and run a command in the background. The final section covers filename expansion and explains how you can use this feature in your everyday work.

Except as noted everything in this chapter applies to the Bourne Again (bash) and TC (tcsh) Shells. The exact wording of the shell output differs from shell to shell: What your shell displays may differ slightly from what appears in this book. For shell-specific information, refer to Chapters 8 (bash) and 9 (tcsh). Chapter 11 covers writing and executing bash shell scripts.