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UNIX Shells by Example, 4th Edition View Larger Image | Ellie Quigley
Prentice Hall, Paperback, 4th Bk&CD edition, Published September 2004, 1150 pages, ISBN 013147572X | List Price: $54.99
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Preface
Playing the "shell" game is a lot of fun. This book was written to
make your learning experience both fun and profitable. Since the first edition
was published, many of you who have been helped by my book have contacted me,
telling me that the book made you realize that shell programming doesn't need
to be difficult at all! Learning by example makes it easy and fun. In fact,
because of such positive feedback, I have been asked by Prentice Hall to produce
this fourth edition of UNIX(R) Shells by Example for UNIX and Linux users, programmers,
and administrators. Along with updated material throughout, it includes three
completely new chapters, with full coverage of the GNU tools for those of you
who use Linux. With the meteoric rise of Linux popularity, it seemed like a
good time to combine the best of Linux Shells by Example with UNIX(R) Shells
by Example and produce a single volume that touches on all the various aspects
of the UNIX/Linux shell world.
The new chapters include Chapter 2, "Shell Programming QuickStart,"
an introductory jump-start for programmers who want a quick survey of the shell
programming constructs and how they differ; Chapter 15, "Debugging Shell
Scripts," which gives you an example of an error message, what caused it,
and how to fix it; and Chapter 16, "The System Administrator and the Shell,"
which demonstrates how the shell is used by system administrators, from system
boot-up to shutdown.
Writing UNIX(R) Shells by Example was the culmination of 21 years of teaching
and developing classes for the various shells and UNIX/Linux utilities most
heavily used by shell programmers. The course notes I developed have been used
by the University of California, Santa Cruz; the University of California, Davis;
Sun Microsystems; Apple Computer; Xilinx; National Semiconductor; LSI Logic;
De Anza College; and numerous vendors throughout the world. Depending upon the
requirements of my client, I normally teach one shell at a time rather than
all of them at once. To accommodate the needs of so many clients, I developed
separate materials for each of the respective UNIX/Linux shells and tools.
Whether I am teaching "Grep, Sed, and Awk," "Bourne Shell for
the System Administrator," "The Interactive Korn Shell," or "Bash
Programming," one student always asks, "What book can I get that covers
all the shells and the important utilities such as grep, sed, and awk? How does
awk differ from gawk? Will this work if I'm using Linux or is this just for
Solaris? Should I get the awk book, or should I get a book on grep and sed?
Is there one book that really covers it all? I don't want to buy three or four
books in order to become a shell programmer."
In response, I could recommend a number of excellent books covering these topics
separately, and some UNIX and Linux books that attempt to do it all, but the
students want one book with everything, and not just a quick survey. They want
the tools, regular expressions, all the major shells, quoting rules, a comparison
of the shells, exercises, and so forth, all in one book. This is that book.
As I wrote it, I thought about how I teach the classes and organized the chapters
in the same format. In the shell programming classes, the first topic is always
an introduction to what the shell is and how it works. Then we talk about the
utilities such as grep, sed, and awk--the most important tools in the shell
programmer's toolbox. When learning about the shell, it is presented first as
an interactive program where everything can be accomplished at the command line,
and then as a programming language where the programming constructs are described
and demonstrated in shell scripts. (Since the C and TC shells are almost identical
as programming languages, there are separate chapters describing interactive
use, but only one chapter discussing programming constructs.)
It's one thing to write a script, but yet another to debug it. I have been
working with the shells for so long, that I can recognize bugs in a program
almost before they happen! But these bugs are hard to find until you get used
to the error messages and what they mean. I added a chapter on debugging to
help you understand what the often cryptic error messages mean and how to fix
them. Since the diagnostics for the shells may differ, each shell is presented
with the most common error messages and what caused them.
Many students take a shell course as a step toward learning system administration.
Susan Barr, a teaching colleague of mine who teaches system administration and
shell programming, offered to share her extensive knowledge and write a chapter
to describe how the system administrator uses the shell (Chapter 16, "The
System Administrator and the Shell").
Having always found that simple examples are easier for quick comprehension,
each concept is captured in a small example followed by the output and an explanation
of each line of the program. This method has proven to be very popular with
those who learned Perl programming from my first book, Perl by Example, or JavaScript
from JavaScript(TM) by Example, and with those who learned to write shell programs
from UNIX(R) Shells by Example.
Another aid to comprehension is that the five shells are discussed in parallel.
If, for example, you're working in one shell but want to see how redirection
is performed in another shell, you will find a parallel discussion of that topic
presented in each of the other shell chapters.
It can be a nuisance to shuffle among several books or the man pages when all
you want is enough information about a particular command to jog your memory
on how a particular command works. To save you time, Appendix A contains a list
of useful UNIX and Linux commands, their syntax, and definitions. Examples and
explanations are provided for the more robust and often-used commands.The comparison
table in Appendix B will help you keep the different shells straight, especially
when you port scripts from one shell to another, and serves as a quick syntax
check when all you need is a reminder of how the construct works.
I think you'll find this book a valuable tutorial and reference. The objective
is to explain through example and keep things simple so that you have fun learning
and save time. Since the book replicates what I say in my classes, I am confident
that you will be a productive shell programmer in a short amount of time. Everything
you need is right here at your fingertips. Playing the shell game is fun . .
. You'll see!
Table of Contents
1. Introduction to UNIX Shells.
2. Shell Programming QuickStart.
3. Regular Expressions and Pattern Matching.
4. The grep Family.
5. sed, The Streamlined Editor.
6. The awk Command.
7. The Interactive Bourne Shell.
8. Programming the Bourne Shell.
9. The Interactive C and TC Shells.
10. Programming the C and TC Shells.
11. The Interactive Korn Shell.
12. Programming the Korn Shell.
13. The Interactive Bash Shell.
14. Programming the Bash Shell.
15. Debugging Shell Scripts.
16. System Administration and the Shell.
Appendix A: Useful UNIX Utilities for Shell Programmers.
Appendix B: Comparison of the Shells.
Appendix C: Flavors of UNIX/Linux (A Chart).
Index.
About the Author
Ellie Quigley is the author of many best-selling books on Linux
shells, UNIX shells, and Perl programming. A leading instructor and trainer,
her courses in Perl and UNIX shell programming at the University of California
Santa Cruz Extension Program, Sun Microsystems, and numerous corporations and
colleges have become legendary throughout Silicon Valley. Quigley’s company,
Learning Enterprises, Inc., offers on-site training in Unix, Perl, C/C++, Java,
and system administration.
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