The vast majority of users utilize the Korn Shell or some variant of the Bourne Shell, such as bash. Sams Teach Yourself Shell Programming in 24 Hours covers these shells. It begins with a generalized tutorial of Unix and tools and then moves into detailed coverage of shell programming. Sams Teach Yourself Shell Programming in 24 Hours is one of the best values because it provides readers with more information for less money. This book uses the effective and proven 'Teach Yourself' format to instruct the reader how to make their shell work for them. It covers useful information including: managing input/output, manipulating text filters, understanding and debugging shell scripts, creating and utilizing variables, tools, processes, and customizing the shell. Sams Teach Yourself Shell Programming in 24 Hours is a tutorial aimed at assisting Unix and Linux users to get optimal performance out of their operating system. It shows them how to take control of their systems and work efficiently by har4nessing the power of the shell to solve common problems.

Table of Contents:
(NOTE: Each chapter concludes with a Summary, Questions, and Terms.) Introduction. I. Introduction to UNIXand Shell Tools. Hour 1. Shell Basics. What Is a Command? What Is the Shell? Hour 2. Script Basics. The UNIX System. Shell Modes and Initialization. Getting Help. Hour 3. Working with Files. Listing Files. File Contents. Manipulating Files. Hour 4. Working with Directories. The Directory Tree. Switching Directories. Listing Files and Directories. Manipulating Directories. Hour 5. Input and Output. Output. Input. File Descriptors. Hour 6. Manipulating File Attributes. File Types. Owners, Groups, and Permissions. Hour 7. Processes. Starting a Process. Listing and Terminating Processes. Parent and Child Processes. II. Shell Programming. Hour 8. Variables. Working with Variables. Environment and Shell Variables. Hour 9. Substitution. Filename Substitution (Globbing). Variable Substitution. Command and Arithmetic Substitution. Hour 10. Quoting. Quoting with Backslashes. Using Single Quotes. Using Double Quotes. Quoting Rules and Situations. Hour 11. Flow Control. The if Statement. The case Statement. Hour 12. Loops. The while Loop. The for and select Loops. Loop Control. Hour 13. Parameters. Special Variables. Options and Arguments. Option Parsing in Shell Scripts. Hour 14. Functions. Using Functions. Understanding Scope, Recursion, Return Codes, and Data Sharing. Hour 15. Text Filters. The head and tail Commands. Using grep. Counting Words. Hour 16. Filtering Text with Regular Expressions. The Basics of awk and sed. Using sed. Hour 17. Filtering Text with awk. What Is awk? Using awk Features. Hour 18. Other Tools. The Built-In Commands. The sleep Command. The find Command. xargs. The expr Command. The bc Command. III. Advanced Topics. Hour 19. Signals.