Chapter 21: Advanced Shell Functions

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Introduction

In the preceding chapters we have explored the Linux shell in some depth. You have seen how to use basic Linux shell commands, how to perform administration of a Linux machine from the shell, and even how to write some simple shell scripts. For the casual Linux user, a home user just wanting to get on the Internet and type documents, this is more than enough knowledge. However, some readers will want to delve deeper into these topics. This chapter is provided for the reader who wants to go into more depth with the shell. We will explore more shell commands, how to edit documents from the shell, and some more complex shell scripts. If you are a casual Linux user, feel free to skip this chapter altogether.

Unfortunately, there is no direct Windows corollary for much of what we will examine in this chapter. This means that we will have to forego our usual method of examining how something is done in Linux and comparing it to a similar task in Windows.

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