Once you’ve gained a solid understanding of Linux and mastered the various commands available, your next big win comes in the form of shell functions. Code wrapped in a function can be reused by your ...

You need to package up a bunch of files, send them somewhere, and do something with them at the destination. It isn’t an uncommon scenario. The obvious answer is to create an archive — a zip or tar ...

The first software that I was actually paid to develop was a 2-page shell script that prompted the user for a dozen or so pieces of information, before launching a set of cooperating processes. Those ...

Simply put, a Shell Script is a program that is run by a UNIX/Linux shell. It is a file that contains a series of commands which are executed sequentially as if they were entered on the command line ...

If you don't love the shell you're using on your Linux system, change it! There are plenty, including bash, fish, ksh, tcsh, zsh. There are quite a few shells on Linux system and more that can be ...

This article is reprinted from the book A Practical Guide to Linux Commands, Editors, and Shell Programming 3rd edition, with permission of the author and publisher ...