Free Downloads

Linux Shell Scripting With Bash

The only book available that covers the powerful Bash shell and associated tools that are essential to any Linux programming professional.

Paperback: 432 pages

Publisher: Sams Publishing; 1 edition (February 8, 2004)

Language: English

ISBN-10: 0672326426

ISBN-13: 978-0672326424

Product Dimensions: 6.6 x 1.1 x 9 inches

Shipping Weight: 2 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)

Average Customer Review: 3.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (21 customer reviews)

Best Sellers Rank: #1,419,874 in Books (See Top 100 in Books) #49 in Books > Computers & Technology > Operating Systems > Unix > Shell #919 in Books > Computers & Technology > Operating Systems > Linux #1468 in Books > Textbooks > Computer Science > Operating Systems

This book, unlike some of the other Bash books on the market, has very accessible and complete examples. It goes beyond simple explanations, but manages to start with the most basic concepts. My only complaint is that it is very text-heavy. Anyone who used Bash on a regular basis, even if they think they are advanced, will find something useful in this book - but if you are new to Bash, the text might be a little too dense. Easier to read than the man pages, and worth the effort, but it will take effort.Overall, one of the best current books on the subject.

This is pretty comprehensive book that guides the reader on how to use Bash for a wide variety of purposes.It is very well-motivated; each chapter introduces the area it examines with an interesting anecdote, and presents a reasonably rich set of examples of how to use Bash along with other Unix tools to solve the problem at hand.It is not solely about Bash; it shows the use of process control tools like ps, kill, and such, text manipulation tools like grep, sort, cut, sed, and such, and version control using CVS. This is all well and proper: One of the major uses of shell scripting is to paste together other programs, and these examples support that.Well done...

I really can't recommend this book to anyone.The author poorly defines the meaning of certain characters, makes references to topics he never covers in the book, and gives only cursory explanations of some key elements on Bash scripting. To make matters worse, several examples are missing characters or have additional characters that prevent the reader from understanding the scripts.For example, I/O redirection gets only two pages in the entire book. I kept waiting for him to re-visit redirection in more depth, but he never did. Not only that, but one of the few I/O redirection samples has a typo that leaves the reader puzzled as to how redirection works at all. The typo is so bad that it renders the entire example incorrect.I think this book was written by and for system administrators who need to do smaller tasks, rather than for developers who both want and need to understand the fundamentals of how Bash scripting works. After reading the entire book, all I gained was a basic Bash vocabulary. I was forced to find more comphrensive books and scripts on the topic in order to understand "how stuff works" and be proficient enough to write scripts on my own.

...but the proofreader should be fired! Also, the author needs to stick to the topic of Bash scripting and leave out the references, intentional and unintentional, to Korn shell scripting. While I do appreciate the tips about how to write Bash scripts that are backward-compatible with the Korn shell, the author has at times began a topic about a Bash feature, then in the next paragraph suddenly and unexpectantly refers to the Korn shell, giving the impression that the feature applies to the Korn shell rather than the Bash shell. After re-reading the passage several times it becomes apparent that the author may have meant to refer to the Bash shell all along, or that the feature is applicable to the Bash shell - either way, it is never explicitly stated and occasionally leaves the reader wondering how the reference to the Korn shell is relevant to the discussion. There are also several typographic errors in both the text and the code snippets. If you have any experience writing Bash scripts, you should be able to spot the errors and make the necessary corrections with little effort. If you are new to Bash scripting, then you might have to use the trial-and-error approach to find and remove the typos.Typographical errors aside, the author covers, or at least touches on, every major area you will need to know to write effective Bash scripts. The author guides you from the fundamentals, such as declaring scalar variables, arrays, and control logic(branching and loops), to function declaration and definition, all the way up to network and database access scripts.Overall, the content of this book warrants adding it to your library, just be mindful of the typos. I would also recommend obtaining a copy of the free "Advanced Bash Scripting Guide", and especially the book "Wicked Cool Shell Scripts" by Dave Taylor.

Amongst recent computer books, this is a rarity. There seems to be only 1 diagram in the entire book. No GUIs to pretty up the scene. In this sense, the book is a throwback to those texts of the 80s. Strictly command line and file I/O.Bash under linux is shown by the book to be not that different from an earlier Bourne shell. Or even the more rudimentary C shell. The various chapters discuss such items as defining variables and thence using these to build up expressions in a script. Burtch methodically shows how to increase the complexity of your scripting.If some of you come from an earlier unix background, and have scripted there, then the book is reassuring. It should validate that most of your expertise carries over into bash and linux. Sure, there might be some new material. But the book shows that a typical script is not that different from a unix script of 20 years ago.

Linux: Linux Bash Scripting - Learn Bash Scripting In 24 hours or less Mastering Unix Shell Scripting: Bash, Bourne, and Korn Shell Scripting for Programmers, System Administrators, and UNIX Gurus Command Line Kung Fu: Bash Scripting Tricks, Linux Shell Programming Tips, and Bash One-liners Linux Shell Scripting with Bash LINUX: Linux Command Line, Cover all essential Linux commands. A complete introduction to Linux Operating System, Linux Kernel, For Beginners, Learn Linux in easy steps, Fast! A Beginner's Guide Learning the bash Shell: Unix Shell Programming (In a Nutshell (O'Reilly)) UNIX Shell Scripting Interview Questions, Answers, and Explanations: UNIX Shell Certification Review Linux: Linux Guide for Beginners: Command Line, System and Operation (Linux Guide, Linux System, Beginners Operation Guide, Learn Linux Step-by-Step) Linux Command Line and Shell Scripting Bible Shell Scripting Tutorial For Unix Linux - Included Free 6+ Hours of Online Tutorial Included Mastering Linux Shell Scripting Shell Programming in Unix, Linux and OS X: The Fourth Edition of Unix Shell Programming (4th Edition) (Developer's Library) bash Cookbook: Solutions and Examples for bash Users (Cookbooks (O'Reilly)) Linux: Linux Mastery. The Ultimate Linux Operating System and Command Line Mastery (Operating System, Linux) Learning the bash Shell, 2nd Edition Unix in easy steps: Commanding the BASH shell Classic Shell Scripting: Hidden Commands that Unlock the Power of Unix Mastering Unix Shell Scripting Portable Shell Programming: An Extensive Collection of Bourne Shell Examples Wicked Cool Shell Scripts: 101 Scripts for Linux, OS X, and UNIX Systems