About the Book

Bourne Shell Programming teaches UNIX users how to harness the power of the shell. The book assumes that the reader has at least a general knowledge of UNIX including its commands, syntax, and operation. It also assumes that the reader also understands simple programming techniques inherent to most programming languages. The book does not provide instuction on the basics of UNIX. It instead builds upon these basics by showing how to combine them with the shell's programming facilities. The goal is to train users to employ these techniques at both the command line and within scripts so that the operating system becomes a tool instead of a hindrance.

This book was written over the course of a number of years mainly because the author switched career paths. The change consequently resulted in a text tested against two different versions of UNIX. Some examples are shown in Sun Solaris 2.4 while others are given from Linux Slackware 3.2. Readers are cautioned to check their local operating system's manual pages on any command demonstrated for proper syntax and operation.

The author realizes he is prone to error and respectfully requests any corrections be forwarded by email. Suggestions on improving this book are also welcome as are offers to publish it through traditional channels.

For notes on the format of this book, the reader is directed to the conventions listed in the book's foreword.

This book was derived from a class created and presented at ARINC Inc, Newport Beach, CA.