Book Image

Learning Linux Shell Scripting

By : Ganesh Sanjiv Naik
Book Image

Learning Linux Shell Scripting

By: Ganesh Sanjiv Naik

Overview of this book

Linux is the one of the most powerful and universally adopted OSes. Shell is a program that gives the user direct interaction with the operating system. Scripts are collections of commands that are stored in a file. The shell can read this file and act on the commands as if they were typed on the keyboard. Shell scripting is used to automate day-to-day administration, and for testing or product development tasks. This book covers Bash, GNU Bourne Again SHell, preparing you to work in the exciting world of Linux shell scripting. We start with an introduction to the Shell environment and explain basic commands used in Shell. Next we move on to check, kill, and control the execution of processes in Linux OS. Further, we teach you about the filter tools available in Linux and explain standard output and standard errors devices. Then we will ensure you understand Shell’s interpretation of commands and get a firmer grasp so you use them in practice. Next, you’ll experience some real-world essentials such as debugging and perform Shell arithmetic fluently. Then you’ll take a step ahead and learn new and advanced topics in Shell scripting, such as starting up a system and customizing a Linux system. Finally, you’ll get to understand the capabilities of scripting and learn about Grep, Stream Editor, and Awk.
Table of Contents (20 chapters)
Learning Linux Shell Scripting
Credits
About the Author
Acknowledgments
About the Reviewers
www.PacktPub.com
Preface
Index

File handling


In this section, you will learn about handling files for reading and writing. In Chapter 8, Automating Decision Making in Scripts, you will learn about checking various attributes of files along with decision making constructs, such as if, case, and similar.

Introducing file handling

The exec command is very interesting. Whenever we run any command in shell, the new subshell or process gets created, and the command runs in this newly created process. When we run any command as argument to the exec command, exec will replace the current shell with the command to be executed. It does not create or spawn a new process to run the command.

Using exec to assign file descriptor (fd) to file

In the Bash shell environment, every process has three files opened by default. These are standard input, display, and error. The file descriptors associated with them are 0, 1, and 2 respectively. In the Bash shell, we can assign the file descriptor to any input or output file. These are called file...