Fundamentals of UNIX

Version 2.0

Copyright © 2007, Wipro Limited, Bangalore

Fundamentals of UNIX

 Day 1
– UNIX Operating System
– UNIX Commands
– Files and Directories
– UNIX Utilities
– Process
 Day 2
– Shell Programming
– Lab Exercises

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Module 1: UNIX Operating System

In this module, you will learn about:

 The functions of OS
 The history of Unix
 The features of UNIX
 The Unix architecture
 Process management
 CPU scheduling
 Memory management
 File management

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Operating System (OS)

 OS can be defined as an organized collection of software

consisting of procedures for operating a computer.
 OS provides an environment for execution of programs.
 OS acts as an interface between the user and the
hardware of the computer system.

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Operating System (Contd.).

 Operating system interacts with user in two ways:

– Operating system commands
• Enables user to interact directly with the operating system.
– Operating system calls
• Provides an interface to a running program and the operating
system. System calls in UNIX are written in C.

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History of UNIX

 Ken Thompson of AT&T Bell Laboratories designed UNIX

in late 1960s
 Two versions of UNIX that emerged are AT&T Unix and
BSD Unix
 In 1989, AT&T and Sun Microsystems joined together and
developed system V release 4 (SVR4)
 Two of the main standards mainly in use are POSIX
(Portable Operating System Interface) and X/open
standard. In 1988, MIT formed Xconsortium developed
vendor-neutral Xwindow System.

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What is Linux?

 An open-source UNIX like operating system

 Initially created by Linus Torvalds for PC architecture
 Ports exist for Alpha and Sparc processors
 Developer community world-wide contribute to its
enhancement and growth

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Features of UNIX

 Multi-user, multitasking, timesharing

 Portability
 Modularity
 File structure
 Security
 Strong networking support & advanced graphics

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Layered Architecture

... banner
ls
cp kernel sort
comp
sh
shell hardware
as
who
ld a.out

vi date
ed wc
grep

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UNIX System Architecture

 Unix system follows a layered approach. It has four layers

 The innermost layer is the hardware layer
 In the second layer, the kernel is placed
 The utilities and other application programs form the third
layer
 Fourth layer is the one with which the user actually
interacts.

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Kernel

 Kernel is that part of the OS which directly makes

interface with the hardware system.
 Actions:
– Provides mechanism for creating and deleting processes
– Provides processor scheduling, memory, and I/O management
– Provides inter-process communication.

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The Shell

 A utility program that comes with the UNIX system.

 Features of Shell are:
– Interactive Processing
– Background Processing
– I/O Redirection
– Pipes
– Shell Scripts
– Shell Variables
– Programming Constructs

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Process Management

 A process is a program in execution.

 Several processes can be executed simultaneously in a
UNIX system.
 A process is generally created using the “fork( )” system
call.
 The process that invokes the “fork( )” system call is the
parent process, and the newly created process is called the
child process.

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CPU Scheduling

 Unix uses round-robin scheduling to support its multi-user

and time-sharing feature.
 Round-robin fashion of scheduling is considered to be the
oldest, simplest and widely used algorithm.
 Every process is given a time slice (10-100 millisec.)

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Memory Management

 Virtual memory
– Swap area
– Demand paging

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File Management

 UNIX uses a hierarchical file system with “/” as its root.

 Every non-leaf node of the tree is called as a directory file.
 Every leaf node can either be a file, or an empty directory

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File System

dev bin tmp home etc var lib usr

spool
inittab bin src
sh
console ls
passwd
user1
lp0
user2

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File System (Contd.).

 File system is the structure in which files are stored on

disk
 File in UNIX is sequence of bytes organized in the form of
blocks
 The size of each block is 512 bytes (depends on
architecture)
 Block size can be decided while creating the file system
structure

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File System Structure

Type of the file

Link counter
gle t
Uid, gid, size i n
S i re c Double
Date and time of Creation
ind indirect
Date and time of access
Boot Block Date and time of
modification

Super Block :
: ipl
e
Tr irect
Ind
Inode Block
Data Block Address of datablock

Address of datablock
:
:

Address of the addr block

Address of the addr block

Address of the addr block

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Common UNIX Flavours

 BSD: Berkeley, BSD

 Solaris: Sun Microsystems, Sys 5/BSD
 Ultrix: Digital Equipment Corporation, BSD
 OSF 1: Digital Equipment Corporation, BSD/sys 5
 HPUX: Hewlett-Packard, Sys 5
 AIX: IBM, Sys 5 / BSD
 IRIX: Silicon Graphics, Sys 5
 GNU/Linux: GNU, BSD/Posix

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Types of UNIX Users

 Broad classification of users

– root (most privileged)
– Non-root (less privileged)
 Group
– UNIX allows user IDs to be grouped
– A single user ID can be member of multiple groups
 Differentiating users w.r.to file access
– Owner
– Group
– Others

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Working With UNIX

 User logs in with a valid user ID

 User logs out to terminate the login session

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Summary

In this module, you have learned about:

 The functions of OS
 The History of Unix
 The features of UNIX
 The Unix Architecture
 Process management
 CPU Scheduling
 Memory management
 File management

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Module 2: UNIX Commands

In this module, you will learn to:

 Use the basic Unix commands
– pwd
– date
– who
– ls
– man
 Use “man” pages

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Simple Commands

 pwd
– Displays the current working directory.
 date
– Displays the current date and time

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Simple Commands (Contd.).

 who
– Displays the names of all the users who have currently logged
in
 who am i
– Displays the name of the current user.

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Meta Characters

* Match with one or more $ls –l *.c file* abc.c , filepro

characters or none
? Match any Single character $ ls –l file? filea
[..] Match with any single $ls –l file[abc] filea, fileb , filec
character with in the
bracket
; Command seperator $cat filea; date displays the
content of filea
and displays the
current date and
time
| Pipe two commands $ cat filea|wc -l Prints the number
of lines of filea
() Group commands, used $(echo Redirects the
when the output of the “***x.c***”;cat content of x.c
command group has to be x.c)>out with a heading
redirected ***x.c*** to the
file out
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Listing the Directory Contents

 ls
Syntax : ls [options] [file….]
options: -l list in long format
-a list all files including those beginning
with a
dot
-i list inode no of file in first column
-s reports disk blocks occupied by file
-R recursively list all sub directories
-F mark type of each file
-C display files in columns

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Listing the Directory Contents (Contd.).

$ ls –l

total 6
-rwxr-xr-x 1 user1 projA 12373 Dec 15 14:45 a.out
drwxr-xr-x 2 user2 projD 4096 Dec 22 14:00 awkpro
-rw-r--r-- 1 user1 projA 12831 Dec 12 13:59 c
-rw------- 1 user1 projA 61440 Dec 15 11:16 core
-rw-r--r-- 1 user3 projC 255 Dec 20 14:29 cs

File type File access User id File size Date & time of File name
permissions in bytes modification
Link count Group id

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Getting Help on Commands

The Unix manual, usually called man pages, is available on-

line to
explain the usage of the Unix system and commands.

 Syntax:
 man [options] command_name
– Common Options
-k keyword list command synopsis line for all keyword
matches
-M path path to man pages
-a show all matching man pages (SVR4)
 info command_name - help for commands
 help -–command_name– gives command synatx

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Summary

In this module, you have learned to:

 use the basic Unix commands like
– pwd
– date
– who
– ls
– man
 use “man” pages

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Module 3: Files and Directories

In this module, you will learn to:

 set file permissions using the chmod command
 use directory-related commands namely mkdir, rmdir, cd
commands
 use file-related commands namely cp, mv, rm commands
 access advanced file permissions using commands umask,
suid, sgid, linking files, stickybit
 create and edit files using the vi editor

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File Access Permissions

Refers to the permissions associated with a file with respect

to the
following:
 Permission Levels
– User (owner) (u)
– Group (wheel, staff, daemon, etc.) (g)
– World (guest, anonymous and all other users) (o)
 Permission Settings
– Read (r)
– Write (w)
– Execute (x)

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File Access Permissions (Contd.).

 No read permission does not allow the user to:

– List the contents of directory
– Remove the directory
 No Write permission does not allow the user to :
– copy files to the directory
– remove files from the directory
– rename files in the directory
– make a subdirectory
– remove a subdirectory from the directory
– move files to, and from the directory

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File Access Permissions (Contd.).

 No execute permission does not allow the user to:

– display the contents of a directory file from within the
directory
– change to the directory
– display a file in the directory
– copy a file to, or from the directory

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Changing Permissions - chmod

 chmod u+x file_name

Syntax:
 chmod <category> <operation> <permission>
<filename(s)>
or
 chmod <octal number> filename
 Octal Number
– 4 - for read
– 2 - for write
– 1 - for execution
– $ chmod 744 xyz
– this sets read, write and execute permissions for owner, read
permission for group and others

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Directory Creation

 Command Syntax
mkdir [OPTION] DIRECTORY
$ mkdir <path>/<directory>
$ mkdir –m <directory>
$ mkdir –p <directory1>/<directory2>/<directory3>

Example:
$ mkdir project1

This creates a directory project1 under current directory.

Note: Write and execute permissions are needed for the

directory in
which user wants to create a directory.

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Directory Removal

rmdir command removes directory

 Syntax
– rmdir <directory name>
 Example
Removes project1 directory in the current directory
– rmdir project1
Remove multiple directories
– rmdir pos1 pos2
Remove the directory recursively
– rmdir –p dir1/dir2/dir3

rmdir removes a directory if it is empty and is not the current

directory.

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Command - cd

cd command is used to change the directory:

 cd - take to the home directory

 cd .. - takes to the parent directory
 cd / - takes to the root directory

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File – related Commands

File Operation Command

Copying a file cp

Moving a file mv

Removing a file rm

Displaying a file and concatenating cat

files

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Command - cp

Used to copy files across directories

Syntax:
cp <source file> <new file name>

Example:
cp file1 file2

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Command – cp (Contd.).

Options to cp
 -p
– Copies the file and preserves the following attributes
• owner id
• group id
• permissions
• last modification time
 -r
– recursive copy; copy subdirectories under the directory if any
 -i
– interactive; prompts for confirmation before overwriting the
target file, if it already exists

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Command – mv

 Used to move a file, or rename a file.

 Preserves the following details
– owner id
– group id
– permissions
– Last modification time
 -f suppresses all prompting (forces overwriting of
target)
 -i prompts before overwriting destination file

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Command - rm

 Used to remove a file

 Syntax : rm file(s)
 -f suppresses all prompting
 -I prompts before deleting destination file
 -r will recursively remove the file from a directory
(can be
used to delete a directory along with the content)
 Caution: Use “i” option along with “r” to get notified on
deletion

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Command – chown & chgrp

$ ls –l
-rwxr-xr-x 1 user1 training 12373 Dec 15 14:45 a.out
-rwxr-xr-x 3 user1 faculty 4096 Dec 24 11:56 awkpro

$chown user2 a.out

$ls –l
-rwxr-xr-x 1 user2 training 12373 Dec 15 14:45 a.out
-rwxr-xr-x 3 user1 faculty 4096 Dec 24 11:56 awkpro

$ chgrp training awkpro

$ls –l
-rwxr-xr-x 1 user2 training 12373 Dec 15 14:45 a.out
-rwxr-xr-x 3 user1 training 4096 Dec 24 11:56 awkpro

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Command - umask

 umask value is used to set the default permission of a file

and directory while creating.
 umask command is used to see the default mask for the file
permission.
 Default umask value will be set in the system environment
file like /etc/profile
 umask 022 will set a mask of 022 for the current session
– The file permission after setting this umask value will be 644
– And the directory permission will be 755

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Command - ln

Linking files:
 Hard Link (in the same filesystem)
– $ ln /usr/bin/clear /usr/bin/cls
– Hard link uses the same inode number
 Soft Link (in different filesystems also used to link
directories)
– $ ln –s /usr/bin/clear /home/user1/cls

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Special Permission Bits

Set user ID (SUID)

 This means that if the SUID bit is set for any application
then your user ID would be set as that of the owner of
application/file rather than the current user, while running
that application
 “set user ID” bit can be set in one of the two ways:
– chmod u+s <filename>
– chmod 4755 <filename>
• The leftmost octal number 4 indicates “set user ID” bit to be set,
other octal digits indicate regular file permissions. This is
meaningful for executable files only.

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Special Permission Bits (Contd.).

Set group id (SGID)

 Just like SUID, setting the SGID bit for a file sets your
group ID to the file's group while the file is executing
 “set group ID” bit can be set in one of the two ways:
– chmod g+s <filename>
– chmod 2755 <filename>
• The leftmost octal number 2 indicates “set group ID” bit to be set,
other octal digits indicate regular file permissions. This is
meaningful for executable files only.

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Special Permission Bits (Contd.).

Sticky bit (SVTX)

 Typically set to a directory that is shareable
 Any user can create a file in such sharable directory
 Only owner of the file or super user (root) can remove a
file from the directory
 “sticky” bit can be set in one of the two ways:
– chmod +t <directoryname>
– chmod 1555 <directoryname>
• The leftmost octal number 1 indicates “sticky” bit to be set, other
octal digits indicate regular file permissions.

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Vi Editor

 vi is a visual editor used to create and edit text files.

– A screen-oriented text editor
– Included with most UNIX system distributions
– Command driven
 Categories of commands include
– Cursor movement
– Editing commands
– Search and replace commands
 The vi editor is invoked by the following command:
– $ vi filename

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Navigation

Backspace Space

h j k l

the quick brown fox the quick brown fox

w w w $
the quick brown fox the quick brown fox

2 w ^
the quick brown fox

b b b

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Editing Commands

Text insertion / replacement

 i - inserts text to the left of the cursor
 a - inserts text to the right of the cursor
 I - inserts text at the beginning of the line
 A - appends text at end of the line
 o - opens line below
 O - opens line above
 R - replaces text from cursor to right
 s - replaces a single character with any number of
characters
 S - replaces entire line

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Editing Commands (Contd.).

Deletion
 x - to delete character at cursor position
 3x - to delete 3 characters at cursor position
 dw - to delete word
 2dw - to delete 2 word
 dd - to delete a line
 2dd - to delete 2 lines

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Editing Commands (Contd.).

 Yanking
– Y - copy line into buffer
– 3Y - copy 3 lines into buffer
– p - copy buffer below cursor
– P - copy buffer above cursor
 Save and quit
– :w - to save
– :w! - to name a file (:w! filename -> save as)
– :x - save and quit
– :q - cancel changes
– :q! - cancel and quit

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Search & Replace Commands

The following commands are applicable for vi editor in Linux:

/pat searches for the pattern pat and

places cursor
where pattern occurs.

/ repeat last search

:%s/old/new/g to change every occurrence in the whole

file.

:#,#s/old/new/g where #,# are replaced with the

numbers of the two lines.

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Summary

In this module, you have learned how to:

 use file permissions using the chmod command
 use directory-related commands namely mkdir, rmdir, cd
commands
 use file-related commands namely cp, mv, rm commands
 access advanced file permissions using commands umask,
suid, sgid, linking the files, stickybit
 create and edit files using the vi editor

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Module 4: UNIX Utilities

In this module, you will learn how to:

 use the Unix utilities such as
– echo, touch, more, file, wc, find
 employ redirection operators
 use filters such as
– sort, grep, cut, head, tail, tr, and paste
 use communication commands
– ftp
 use backup commands
– tar and zip/gzip

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cat

 cat command takes the input from the keyboard, and sends
the output to the monitor.
 We can redirect the input and output using the redirection
operators.

$ cat > file1

Type the content here
press <ctrl d>
$ cat file1
Displays the content of the file
$cat >> file1

This will append standard input to the content of file1.

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touch

 touch is used to change the time stamp of the file

Syntax:
 touch [options] file
 Options:
– -a to change the access time
– -m to change the modification time
– -c no create if not exists
 touch <file> will change the time of change of the file if
the file exists.
 If the file does not exist, it will create a file of zero byte
size.

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echo & read

 echo command is used to print output to the screen

echo “This is an example”
This is an example

x=10
echo $x
10
 read command allows to read input from user and assign it
to the variable specified.
read x

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General Purpose Utilities

 more
– Allows user to view one page-full of information at a time.
 file
– Used to display the type of the file
 tty
– Prints the terminal’s name

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General Purpose Utilities (Contd.).

 wc
– A filter used to count the number of lines, words, and
characters in a disk file or from the standard input.
– -l - displays the number of lines
– -w - displays the number of words
– -c - displays the number of characters

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find

 Lets user to search set of files and directories based on

various criteria
 Syntax: find [path...] [expression]
 [path]
– where to search
 [expression]
– What type of file to search (specified with –type option)
– What action to be applied (–exec, –print, etc.)
– Name of the files (specified as part of –name option, enclosed
in “ ”)
 Example
– find . –name “*.c” -print
– lists all files with .c extension from the current dir & its
subdirectories

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find (Contd.).

 Finding files on the basis of file size

– – size [+ –]n[bc]
• n represents size in bytes (c) or blocks (b) of 512 bytes
• find . –size 1000c lists all files that are exactly 1000 bytes in
size
• find . –size +1000c lists all files that are more than 1000 bytes
in size
• find . –size –1000c lists all files that are less than 1000 bytes
in size

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find (Contd.).

 Finding files on the basis of access time (atime) or

modified time (mtime)
– – atime [+-]n
– – mtime [+-]n
• n represents number of days ( actually 24 * n hours)
• find . –atime 2 lists files accessed exactly 2 days ago
• find . –atime +2 lists files accessed more than 2 days ago
• find / –mtime –2 lists files modified less than 2 days ago

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find (Contd.).

 Applying a command on files matching the criteria with –

exec and –ok options
– – exec command {} \;
• command is command to be applied on the matching files (does
not prompt user)
• find . -name “*.dat” –exec ls –l {} \;
• Long listing of all files with .dat extension in the current and its
subdirectories
– -ok command {} \;
• Functionality is similar to –exec, but prompts user before applying
the command on the file matching the criteria.

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Standard Files

 Standard Input file

– Keyboard, file descriptor is 0
 Standard Output file
– Monitor, file descriptor is 1
 Standard Error file
– Monitor, file descriptor is 2

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I/O Redirection

< file redirect standard input from file

> file redirect standard output to file
2> file redirect standard error to file
2>&1 merge standard error with standard output
$ cat > abc
$ ls –l > outfile
$ cat xyz abc > outfile 2> errfile
$ cat xyz abc > outfile 2>&1

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Filters

 Filters are programs that takes its input from the standard
input file, process it, and sends it to the standard output
file.
 Commonly used filter commands
– sort
– grep
– cut
– head
– tail
– paste

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sort

Sorts the contents of the given file based on the first char of
each line.
-n numeric sort (comparison made
according to strings numeric value)
-r reverse sort
-t specify delimiter for fields
+num specify sorting field numbers
+num [-num] to specify the range

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grep

 grep -Global Regular Expression Printer is used for

searching regular expressions
 Syntax
– grep <options> <pattern> <filename(s)>

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grep Options

-c displays count of the number of occurrences

-n displays line numbers along with the lines

-v displays all lines except lines matching pattern

-i Ignores case for matching

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Patterns

* - matches 0 or more characters

[^pqr] - Matches a single character which is not p,

q or r

^pqr -Matches pqr at the beginning of the line

pqr$ -Matches pqr at the end of the line

“.” - Matches any one character

\ - ignores the special meaning. grep “New\[abc\]”

filename

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Filter Command - head

Displays the first n lines of the file

$ head -3 file1

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Filter Command - tail

Displays the last n lines of a file

$ tail -3 file1

Can also specify the line number from which the data has to
be
displayed till the end of file.

$ tail +5 file1

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Filter Command - tr

tr - translate filter used to translate a given set of characters

Example :
tr [a-z] [A-Z] < filename

This converts standard input read from lower case to upper

case.

option -s can be used to squeeze the repeated characters.

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Filter Command – tr (Contd.).

Useful options for tr

 -s char
– Squeeze multiple contiguous occurrences of the character
into single char
 -d char
– Remove the character

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Command Piping

 Allows the output (only the standard output) of a command

to be sent as input to another command.
 Multiple pipes may appear in one command line.
 Example:
– $ cat * | wc
– $ cat fil1 | head | wc -l

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Filter Command – tee

 tee command allows the normal output to the standard

output, as well as to a file
 Useful to capture intermediate output of a long command
pipeline for further processing, or debugging purpose.
 Example
– who | tee userlist
– cat - | tee file1 | wc -l

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Filter Command – cut

Used to extract specified columns of a text

Option remark
-c used to extract characters
-d Delimiter for fields
-f Field no.

Examples:
$ cut -c2-5 file1
$ cut -d “|” -f2,3 file1

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ftp

 ftp is a file transfer program

 Provides necessary user interface to the standard File
Transfer Protocol
 Allows users to transfer files to and from a remote host
 Syntax
– $ ftp hostname

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ftp - commands

 ftp program supports the following commands

– get receive file from host
– mget receive multiple files from host
– put send file to host
– mput send multiple files from host

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ftp – commands (Contd.).

 ftp program supports the following commands as well

– ls list directory of host
– cd change directory on the host
– lcd change directory on the local machine
 To set transfer format
– ascii set to ascii mode
– binary set to binary mode

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ftp – commands (Contd.).

 Progress indication of transfer

– hash command
 Quitting ftp session
– bye command

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Tape Archive - tar

 Tar is an archiving utility to store and retrieve files from an

archive, known as tarfile.
 Though archives are created on a tape, it is common to
have them as disk files as well.
– tar c|t|x [vf destination] source...

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Tape Archive – tar (Contd.).

Examples:
 Create a new tar file containing all .dat files (assuming
a.dat, b.dat and c.dat exist)
 $ tar –cf mytar *.dat

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Compression Utilities

 gzip,
 Usage is very similar to compress and pack utilities in
Unix:
– gzip [-vc] filename
• where -v displays the compression ratio.
• -c sends the compressed output to standard output and leaves the
original file intact.
 gunzip
– gunzip can uncompress files originally compressed with
compress.

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Summary

In this module, you have learned to:

 use the Unix Utilities like
– cat, echo, touch, more, file, wc, find
 employ redirection operators
 use filters like
– sort, grep, cut, head, tail, tr, ftp
 backup commands
– tar and zip/gzip

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Module 5: Process

In this module, you will learn to:

 Use process-related commands like
– ps, kill, sleep
 Start a background process
 Use background and foreground-related commands like
– bg, fg, jobs , nice , nohup

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What is a Process?

 Process - a program in execution

 When program is executed, a new process is created
 The process is alive till the execution of the program is
complete
 Each process is identified by a number called pid

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Login shell

As soon as the user logs in, a process is created which

executes the login
shell.

Login shell is set for each login in /etc/passwd file.

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ps

 The ps command is used to display the characteristics of a

process
 It fetches the pid, tty, time, and the command which has
started the process.
– -f lists the pid of the parent process also.
– -u lists the processes of a given user
– -a lists the processes of all the users
– -e lists all the processes including the system processes

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Background Process

 Enables the user to do more than one task at a time.

 If the command terminates with an ampersand (&), UNIX
executes the command in the background
 Shell returns by displaying the process ID (PID) and job id
of the process

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Controlling Background Process

 jobs
– List the background process
 fg % <job id>
– Runs a process in the foreground
 bg %<job id>
– Runs a process in the background

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The kill Command

 kill: Kills or terminates a process

 kill command send a signal to the process
– The default signal is 15 ( SIGTERM)
 kill -9 (SIGKILL)
– Terminates the process abruptly
 pkill : command used to kill a process by name
– pkill <command name>
– Pkill -9 <command name>

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Process Priority

 nice
– Used to reduce the priority of jobs
 renice
– Used to change the priority of running process

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nohup Command

 nohup
– Lets processes to continue to run even after logout
– The output of the command is sent to nohup.out if not
redirected
 $ nohup command args
– $ nohup sort emp.lst &
– [1] 21356
– nohup: appending output to `nohup.out'

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wait Command

 wait command
– can be used when a process has to wait for the output of a
background process
– The wait command, can be used to let the shell wait for all
background processes terminate.
– $ wait
– It is possible to wait for completion of one specific process as
well.

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Summary

In this module, you learned to:

 Define a process
 Use process-related commands like
– ps, kill, sleep
 Start a background process
 Use background and foreground-related commands like
– bg, fg, jobs, nice and nohup

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Module 6: Shell Programming

In this module, you will learn to:

 Use shell variables
 Write scripts to process positional parameters
 Use “test” command
 Use “if” construct
 Use “for” loop
 Use “while” loop
 Use “case” construct
 Define and use functions
 Debug shell scripts

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Unix Shell

– Bourne shell sh

– C shell csh

– Korn shell ksh

– Bourne again shell bash

(shell distributed with linux)

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Command Processing

 Displays the shell prompt and reads the command typed by

the user.
 Interprets the command and classifies it as an internal
(built-in), or an external command.
 If it is NOT a built-in command, searches for the command
in the PATH-specified directories, and executes that
command if it is found.

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Additional Shell Features

 Each shell, apart from the basic features, provides

additional features such as:
– Maintaining command history (C, korn and bash)
– Renaming (aliasing) a command (C, korn, bash)
– Command editing (C, korn and bash)
– Programming language (all shells)

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History

 Some of the UNIX shells support command history

 Facility to keeps track of commands that were executed
 Facility to rerun previously executed commands
 bash shell supports the following

history displays the command history

!! recall the last command and execute it.

!num execute nth command where n is the

the num specified after !

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alias

 alias can be used to give new name to an existing

command
 A better name that represents a single command or a
sequence of commands to be executed, often with
appropriate options
 alias is an internal command

alias newname=command

$ alias l=‘ls –l’

The unalias command cancels previously defined alias.

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File Name Substitution

 When the user enters a command string, the shell parses

the string into following components:
– Command (the first part of the string, till the first space char)
– Command arguments (the subsequent parts of the string)
 For example, given the command-string “ls –l *.c”, this
string contains the “ls” command and two arguments “-l”
and “*.c”.

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File Name Substitution (Contd.).

 In arguments of a command, the shell recognizes certain

characters – such as *, ?, [ ], and - as special characters
and expands these characters into a filename list before
executing the command.
 To see how this works, enter following commands while
in /bin directory

$ ls a*
$ ls ??

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Configuration Scripts

bsh ksh csh bash

System /etc/profile /etc/profile /etc/login /etc/profile

Profile

User ~.profile ~.profile ~.login ~.bash_profile

profile
Script file ~.shrc ~.kshrc ~.cshrc ~.bashrc

~ is used to represent the home directory of the user

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Scripting

 Allows
– Defining and referencing variables
– Logic control structures such as if, for, while, case
– Input and output

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Shell Variables

 A variable is a name associated with a data value, and it

offers a symbolic way to represent and manipulate data
variables in the shell. They are classified as follows:
– user-defined variables
– environment variables
– predefined variables
 value assigned to the variable can then be referred to by
preceding the variable name with a $ sign.

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Shell Variables (Contd.).

 The shell provides the facility to define normal, and

environment variables.
 A normal variable can be only used in the shell where it is
defined.
 An environment variable can be used in the shell where it
is defined, plus any child shells invoked from that shell.

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Using Normal Variables

 To define a normal variable, use the following syntax:

– variable_name=value
 Examples:
– x=10
– textline_1=‘This line was entered by $USER’
– textline_2=“This line was entered by $USER”
– allusers=`who`
– usercount=`who | wc –l`

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Using Normal Variables (Contd.).

 Once variables are defined, one can use the echo command
to display the value of each variable:
– echo $x
– echo $textline_1
– echo $textline_2
– echo $allusers
– echo $usercount

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Using Environment Variables

 To define an environment variable, use following syntax:

– variable_name=value
 export variable_name
 Examples:
– $ x=10; export x
– $ allusers=`who` ; export allusers

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Built-in Environment Variables

 PATH
 BASH_ENV
 HOME
 PWD
 SHELL
 TERM
 MAIL
 USER
 LOGNAME
 PS1
 PS2

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Sample Shell Script

#! /bin/bash
#
# The above line has a special meaning. It must be the
# first line of the script. It says that the commands in
# this shell script should be executed by the bash
# shell (/bin/bash).
# ---------------------------------------------------------------
echo “Hello $USER….”
echo “Welcome to programming shell scripts..”
# ---------------------------------------------------------------

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Executing Shell Scripts

 There are two ways of executing a shell script:

– By passing the shell script name as an argument to the shell.
For example:
• sh script1.sh
– If the shell script is assigned execute permission, it can be
executed using it’s name. For example:
• ./script1.sh

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Passing Parameters to Scripts

 parameter can be passed to a shell script

 parameters are specified after the name of the shell script
when invoking the script.
 Within the shell script, parameters are referenced using
the predefined variables $1 through $9.
 In case of more than 9 parameters, other parameters can
be accessed by shifting.

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Positional Variables

 Following are built-in variables supported

– $0, $1…$9 - positional arguments
– $* - all arguments
– $@ - all arguments

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Passing Parameters to Scripts - example

 Consider following shell script:

----------------------script2.sh--------------------------
echo “Total parameters entered: $#”
echo “First parameter is : $1”
echo “The parameters are: $*”
shift
echo “First parameter is : $1”
------------------------------------------------------------

 Execute the above script using the “script2.sh these are

the parameters” command.

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Passing Parameters to Scripts – example (Contd.).

 The shell parameters are passed as strings.

 to pass a string containing multiple words as a single
parameter, it must be enclosed within quotes.
 For example,

$ script2.sh “this string is a single parameter”

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Doing Arithmetic Operations

 Arithmetic operations within a shell script can be

performed using expr command.
 Example,
x=10
y=5
number_1 = `expr $x + $y`
number_2 = `expr $x - $y`
number_3 = `expr $x / $y`
number_4 = `expr $x \* $y`
number_5 = `expr $x % $y`

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Using the test Command

 The general syntax of test command is:

test <expression>

 The expression can be formed using a combination of

shell variables and the operators supported by the test
command. These operators provide facility to compare
numbers, string and logical values, file types and file
access modes.

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Using the test Command (Contd.).

 To compare two integers using test following operators are

available:
– -eq (equal to)
– -ne (not equal to)
– -lt (less than)
– -le (less than or equal to)
– -gt (greater than)
– -ge (greater than or equal to)

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Using the test Command (Contd.).

 Please note that you can only compare two integers using
test.
 General syntax
– test [expression]
– test integer1 operator integer2
OR
– [ integer1 operator integer2 ]

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Using the test Command (Contd.).

 To compare two strings using the test command, following

operators are available:

$string1 = $string2 (equal to, please note it is a single =)

$string1 != $string2 (not equal to)
$string1 (string is not NULL)
-z $string1 (string is NULL and exists)

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Using the test Command (Contd.).

The syntax for this string comparison is:

test string1 operator string2

OR
[ string1 operator string2 ]
OR
test operator string
OR
[ operator string ]

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Using the test Command (Contd.).

 To check a file type/access permissions using the test

command, following operators are available:
– -s file (file is not empty and exists)
– -f file (Ordinary file and exists)
– -d file (file is a directory and exists)
– -r file (file is readable and exists)
– -w file (file is write-able and exists)
– -x file (file is executable and exists)

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Using the test Command (Contd.).

 To check a file type/access permissions using the test

command, following operators are available:
– -b file (file is a block device and exists)
– -c file (file is a character device and exists)
– -p file (file is a named pipe and exists)
– -g file (file has sticky bit set)
– -u file (file has setuid bit set)
– -t file_des (file descriptor is standard output)

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Combining Conditions

 It is possible to combine conditions by using following

operators:
– -a (logical AND operator)
– -o (logical OR operator)
– ! (logical NOT operator)

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Combining Conditions (Contd.).

The syntax for this is:

test expression_1 –a expression _2,

OR
[ expression _1 –a expression _2 ]

test expression_1 –o expression _2,

OR
[ expression_1 –o expression_2 ]

test ! expression _1
OR
[ ! expression _1 ]

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Condition Checking in Scripts

Bash shell provides the if command to test if a condition is

true. The
general format of this command is:

if condition
then
command
fi

The condition is typically formed using the test command.

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Example

# to check if the current directory is the same as your home

directory
curdir=`pwd`
if test “$curdir” != “$HOME”
then echo your home dir is not the same as your present
working
directory
else
echo $HOME is your current directory
fi

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Checking Multiple Conditions

The complex form of if statement is as follows:

if condition_1
then
command
elif condition_2
then
command
else
command
fi

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Using for Loop

The Bash shell provides a for

loop.
Example:
The syntax of this loop is:
for i in 1 2 3 4 5
for variable in list do
do echo -n $i \* $i = " "
command echo `expr $i \* $i `
… done
command
done

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Example

----------------------script.sh--------------------------
#! /bin/sh
usernames=`who | cut –d “ “ –f1`
echo “Total users logged in = $#usernames”
#
for user in ${usernames}
do
echo $user
done
------------------------------------------------------------

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Using while Loop

The Bash shell provides a while loop. The syntax of this loop
is:

while condition
do
command
…
command
done

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Example

Shell script checks for a blank/non blank string

eg: read nam

while [ -z “$nam” ]
do
read nam
done
echo the string is $nam

The above piece of code keeps accepting string variable nam

until it is
non zero in length.

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Example (Contd.).

Shell script to compute factorial of a given number

#!/bin/bash
n=$1
if [ $n -eq 0 ]; then
fact=0
else
fact=1
while [ $n –ne 0 ]
do
fact=`expr $fact \* $n`
n=`expr $n – 1`
done
fi
echo $fact

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The case Statement

-THE CASE STATEMENT

case value in
pattern1)
command
command;;
pattern2)
command
command;;
patternn)
command;;
esac

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Example

#!/bin/bash
echo enter a choice
read choice
case $choice in
1) echo enter 2 nos
read num1
read num2
res=`expr $num1 + $num2`
echo result is $res;;
2) who;;
*) echo invalid choice;;
esac

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Example (Contd.).

#!/bin/bash
read number
case $number
1) echo 1st;;
2) echo 2nd;;
3) echo 3rd;;
*) echo ${number}th;;
esac

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Functions

Shell functions are a way to group commands for later

execution using
a single name for the group. They are executed just like a
"regular“
command.

Shell functions are executed in the current shell context; no

new
process is created to interpret them. Functions are declared
using this
syntax:

[ function ] name () { command-list; }

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Functions (Contd.).

Shell functions can accept arguments

Arguments are passed in the same way as given to commands
Functions refer to arguments using $1, $2 etc., similar to the
way shell
scripts refer to command line arguments

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Functions (Contd.).

Function to convert standard input into upper case

toupper()
{
tr a-z A-Z
}

This function can be used as

$ cat abc | toupper

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Debugging Shell Scripts

Two options help in debugging shell scripts

“-v” (verbose) option:
causes shell to print the lines of the script as they
are read.

$ bash –v script-file

“-x” (verbose) option:

prints commands and their arguments as they are
executed.

$ bash –x script-file

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Programming in C vs. Shell

Comparison between:
A solution in C
A shell solution written like a C program
A proper “shell/unix” solution
e.g:
The problem is to count the no of lines in a file ( the file is
called
the_file)

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Programming in C vs. Shell (Contd.).

A Solution in C A Shell Solution

#include <stdio.h> count=0
void main(void) while read line
{ do
int lcount=0; count=`expr $count + 1`
done < the_file
FILE *infile;
char line[500];
echo Number of lines is $count
infile=fopen("the_file","r");
while(!feof(infile))
{
fgets(line,500,infile);
lcount ++;
}
printf("no of lines is %d\n",lcount);
}
Solution using existing commands

$ wc –l the_file

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Summary

In this module, you have learned to:

 Use Shell variables
 Write scripts to process positional parameters
 Use “test” command
 Use “if” construct
 Use “for” loop
 Use “while” loop
 Use “case” construct
 Define and use functions
 Debug shell scripts

Version 2.0 150

Suggested References

1. Abrahams, W.P. & Larson, R. B. (1992). UNIX for the impatient.

Addison-Wesley Publishing Company, 1992.
2. Kernighan, W. B. & Pike, R. (1984). The UNIX programming
environment. Prentice Hall, 1984. A classic for serious folks.
3. UNIX in a nutshell: a desktop quick reference for system V &
Solaris 2.0. O'Reilly & Associates, Inc., 1992. A handy reference
for SysV and Solaris 2.
4. UNIX in a nutshell for BSD 4.3: a desktop quick reference for
Berkeley. O'Reilly & Associates, Inc., 1990. A handy reference for
BSD.

Websites:
 http://knet.wipro.com

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Module 7: Lab Exercises

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