O'Reilly's bestselling book on Linux's bash shell is at it again. Now that Linux is an established player both as a server and on the desktop Learning the bash Shell has been updated and refreshed to account for all the latest changes. Indeed, this third edition serves as the most valuable guide yet to the bash shell.

As any good programmer knows, the first thing users of the Linux operating system come face to face with is the shell the UNIX term for a user interface to the system. In other words, it's what lets you communicate with the computer via the keyboard and display. Mastering the bash shell might sound fairly simple but it isn't. In truth, there are many complexities that need careful explanation, which is just what Learning the bash Shell provides.

If you are new to shell programming, the book provides an excellent introduction, covering everything from the most basic to the most advanced features. And if you've been writing shell scripts for years, it offers a great way to find out what the new shell offers. Learning the bash Shell is also full of practical examples of shell commands and programs that will make everyday use of Linux that much easier. With this book, programmers will learn:

• How to install bash as your login shell
• The basics of interactive shell use, including UNIX file and directory structures, standard I/O, and background jobs
• Command line editing, history substitution, and key bindings


• How to customize your shell environment without programming


• The nuts and bolts of basic shell programming, flow control structures, command-line options and typed variables


• Process handling, from job control to processes, coroutines and subshells


• Debugging techniques, such as trace and verbose modes


• Techniques for implementing system-wide shell customization and features related to system security

Average Customer Review: ( 39 customer reviews )
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Strengths of the publication are the clear explanations of the bash shell programming environment, the effective use of tables to summarize basic shell language and programming constructs, UNIX-based utilities, shell environment customization, shell Syntax, Bash File Operators and control key definitions.

A chapter is devoted to edit mode capabilities (both eMacs and Vi Command-Line Editing Commands are covered and summarized effectively in clearly doucmented tables).

The book contains a number of terse script programming tasks, which provide clear examples of the material presented in the text. These program examples are reworked to provide a clear example of how Bash scripts can be modified to provide greater flexibility and reusability of Bash shell program code.

I would like to see more robust programming shell examples in the book as examples of mini-applications, which Bash is frequently used for in many Unix-based or Unix-derived platforms. The "Task 5-1" program example is an example where a good example of a program, which does an adequate job of clearly covering the use of Bash File Operators, yet the author(s) make the statement that the code is "relatively long winded".

Another area the book could address is the use of Bash in a Windows environment. I was able to port some of the programming tasks presented to a Windows 95/98 environment using the GNU Bash Version 2.03 for Windows package available on the internet.

Despite these drawbacks, I rate the book four stars on the strengths that it is the only readily-available publication, which is solely devoted to Bash shell use and programming. The O'Reilly publication is definitely worth the investment, if you are looking for a book to get you started on Bash Shell Script programming on a Unix, Linux or Windows (to a limited degree) environment.

28 of 28 found the following review helpful:

Strong, gently-paced introOct 24, 2006
By wiredweird "wiredweird"
The bash shell is now the most common and featureful command shell in the Unix world. It's full capability certainly isn't obvious to a beginner facing a command prompt, but is well worth exploring. This book is a great place for the novice to start. The first chapter addresses the most fundamental question: just what is a command shell?

The ideal reader already knows at least the names of the emacs and vi editors. That much helps understand the many features and two distinct feature sets available for command line editing. I consider fancy command line editing over-rated for fluent typists, but it's there in the second chapter for all who want it and anyone can benefit from at least a little knowledge of it. After that successive chapters pull the reader deeper into the bash feature set: aliases and shell variables, scripting and shell programming, and debugging when the shell programs or functions go awry.

Since this book is aimed at the novice, Newham and Rosenblatt skip lightly over a few of the more advanced subjects. For example, exceptions and trap handling get only cursory treatment, since they get into deep weirdness very fast. The authors are honest about this shallow treatment, though, and give enough information for a novice to recognize the basics and look them up in more advanced references.

This is nicely organized for the self-taught student. As a result, it's not laid out as a programmer's reference manual - anyone who wants that kind of reference just isn't looking at the right book. For its intended reader, though, it's a great book. It gets readers off to a fast start, and lets them decide just how much they want to bite off at a time. I recommned it very highly.

//wiredweird

36 of 40 found the following review helpful:

Lacking examplesSep 04, 1999

Learning the Bash Shell, should be not be called a learning book. The lack of real world examples really hurt this book. I found Unix Shells by Example a much better learning tool for the Bash Shell. This was surprising, since other learning books by O'Reilly are considerably better than this one.

11 of 11 found the following review helpful:

Good explanations, but lacking decent examplesMay 01, 2000

This book is aimmed at beginners, but goes into enough depth to get you truly on your way. It explanations of commands, and concepts are very clear and concise. Also, I like how the authors initially in the book go over and explain commands several times, as this makes remembering the syntax of commands much simplier (for someone with bad memory, like me).

One criticism is the lack of decent examples, when they are given. All the examples seem to be oversimply or non-real-world, and I feel the authors could make concepts clearer by including more examples.

To sum up, this is not a book for you if you learn by trial-and-error and examples, but if you don't mind the lack of decent examples, then this book is a good unix shell programming book.

14 of 15 found the following review helpful:

Solid coverage of bash fundamentals...Mar 03, 1999

I just finished this book, and I have to say it was definitely worth the money. The authors do a more than credible job of describing the fundamentals of bash without going too deeply into technical minutiae. Not that they don't present some complex examples! I appreciated the fact that the examples in early chapters were revisited and augmented in later chapters as more complex material was presented. People who prefer thick reference-type compendiums that need not be read in a linear fashion may dislike this, but I found it to be quite helpful.

Particularly illuminating was the image manipulation script they used as an example in several chapters. It really gave me an idea of the power of scripting. Unfortunately, obtaining the source code for the tools the example relied on and compiling them turned out to be a chore; I finally gave up. Still, I had no problem understanding the example even without actually being able to implement it. And there were plenty of other examples that didn't rely on non-standard unix utilities.

If I had to make a single criticism, I'd say that the book could focus a bit more on *interactive* shell use, and why bash is better/worse than other shells in interactive mode. Being a former tcsh user who has developed lots of aliases and programmed completions over time, it would've been helpful to have a section called "Migrating from Csh" or something like that...

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