Portable Shell Programming: An Extensive Collection of Bourne Shell Examples

By Bruce Blinn

Book Overview

Traditionally, books on shell programming present the shell as the user interface to UNIX. This complete guide shows how to use the shell to develop shell scripts, using the shell more like a... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0134514947
• ISBN13: 9780134514949
• Release Date: January 1995
• Publisher: Prentice Hall
• Length: 296 Pages
• Weight: 0.70 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.7" x 7.0" x 9.2"

Customer Reviews

Extremely Efficient

Like a good programmer, Bruce Blinn writes his book very efficiently. He describes the command briefly then uses well-thoughtout examples to show the power of that command and the 'gotchas'. He groups the commands and points out differences between similar tools (like single v double quotes v brackets ) He also textually hyperlinks you to other chapters in the book for further reference when a subject is referenced but not covered at that time. While the book is only about 250 pages (including 5 blank pages for your own notes), Bruce covers all the good stuff. If you want the info, get it here. If you more words for your money, there are other books for that. For the gentleman who asked about Chapters - Chap 1 Shell Syntax Chap 2 Shell Variables Chap 3 Shell Functions & Built-in Commands Chap 4 Using Files Chap 5 The Environment Chap 6 Parsing Command-Line Parameters Chap 7 Using Filters [sed, awk, ed. Get O'Reillys Sed & Awk] Chap 8 Shell Utilities [Arith, String, UserInput, etc] Chap 9 Example Shell Functions [GetYesNo etc] Chap 10 Examples Shell Scripts Chap 11 Debugging Chap 12 Portability Chap 13 Command Q & A Appendix A - Comparison of UNIX shells Appendix B - Syntax Summary Index

One of the best shell programming books I've read!

Although I've been shell programming for years, I still learned a lot of new material from this book. Unlike Bill Rosenblatt's book, "Learning the Korn Shell", this book is extremely well thought out and presents subjects in a logical order. I would even recommend this book to people new to shell programming. In addition, unlike most of the other books I've read, ALL of the examples actually work! Mr. Blinn has even taken the time to make sure the examples will work on most every platform (Solaris, HP-UX, ULTRIX, ...).As the book states, we learn shell programming best by looking at examples of shell scripts. This book is a gold mine of examples which are practical and applicable to a System Administrator's every day job. They really help to reinforce some of the more advanced and/or cryptic shell programming features. Mr. Blinn also does an outstanding job of explaining each shell script in detail. He does not leave the reader guessing or confused.To be fair, I have to include the fact that the diskette which came with my book was blank. However, by following the instructions in the book I was able to download them from Prentice Hall's FTP site in less than 5 minutes.

A great book of script examples.

A great book for learning shell scripting. It starts out with general syntax but then the rest of the book in filled with micro examples of things you need to write scripts, like input, output, prompting, changing case, manipulating strings, parsing and extracting data, finding file sizes, checking free space, setting screen echo on/off, read with a timeout, text substitution, doing math, here files, etc. There are also sections on portability, debugging, and common problems. I am very happy with this book and use it often when I am scripting.

"Practical" is meaningful in this case!

As opposed to other books with "practical" in the title, this one lives up to its name. I found Chapters 4 (Using Files), 5 (The Environment), and 7 (Using Filters) very helpful. The book is full of many examples of practical things, such as how to delete all blank lines in a file. This makes is valuable for the beginner, and the later chapters contain information for the more advanced shell programmer. I got this book at a time when the guy who wrote all our shell scripts quit without notice. This book was a lifesaver, as I had to write short (and not so short) shell scripts to automate certain tasks & understand the work he did. I would like to see more discussion in Chapter 7 (Using Filters) about combining the use of sed and the Unix/Linux command tr. I find that I have to use these together sometimes as one does things the other can't handle. This is the only suggestion I have to improve an already useful book.

A concise, readable reference for the Bourne shell.

This is the one shell programming book that every engineer will want to have on their desktop. It is concise without being cryptic; Blinn's prose style is clear and straightforward. The concepts and syntax of the Bourne shell are explained in great detail, without reading like a man page. The examples are excellent and are explained line-by-line. If you have been frustrated in the past by 800-page behemoths filled with whitespace, pointless diagrams, and small talk, you will be pleasantly surprised. It is simply the finest book available on the subject.