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Bashing the Shell: Advanced Scripting

Project: Bash
Wiki Page: Bashing the Shell: Advanced Scripting

You may know Bash as the command-line interpreter for most Linux users, but it is also the default shell script interpreter in many Linux distributions.

This tutorial would suit people who:
* have fallen into being a sysadmin and need to understand what they've gotten their hands on;
* have been using the command-line for a while and have started writing small scripts to automate some of your tasks, but have often encountered strange or puzzling behaviour;
* have tried looking at the scripts in /etc/init.d, and been found gibbering under the bed hours later;
* want to understand the differences between classic Bourne shell, POSIX shell, Bash, Dash and Ksh;
* have used other programming languages but have found the Shell too arcane.

To gain the most benefit from this tutorial, it would be helpful to have either some programming experience, or at least a year of reasonably extensive use of the command-line.

Included:
* a brief history of Shells
* process & environment management
* common pitfalls and techniques to avoid them
* guidance on "best practice"
* special features for interactive use
* when to give up and use something else

Bring your problems, curiosity, and curly questions, for a hands-on session with worked examples.

Martin Kealey

Martin Kealey has been hacking Unix-like systems since the mid 80's, and by now has forgotten how many programming languages he's forgotten.

A program is never finished, but it can be elegant, it ought to be useful, and it must be bulletproof.