Pro Bash - 3rd Edition by Jayant Varma (Paperback)

Book Synopsis

Learn how to effectively utilize the Bash shell in your programming. This refreshed and expanded third edition has been updated to Bash 5.2, and many scripts have been rewritten to make them more idiomatically Bash, taking better advantage of features specific to Bash. It is easy to read, understand, and will teach you how to get to grips with Bash programming without drowning you in pages and pages of syntax.

Using this book you will be able to use the shell efficiently, make scripts run faster using expansion and external commands, and understand how to overcome many common mistakes that cause scripts to fail. This book is perfect for all beginning Linux and Unix system administrators who want to be in full control of their systems, and really get to grips with Bash programming.

The Bash shell is a complete programming language, not merely a glue to combine external Linux commands. By taking full advantage of Shell internals, Shell programs can perform as snappily as utilities written in C or other compiled languages. And you will see how, without assuming UNIX lore, you can write professional Bash programs through standard programming techniques.

What You'll Learn

• Use the Bash shell to write utilities and accomplish most programming tasks
• Replace many external commands with shell parameter expansion making scripts very fast
• Avoid many common mistakes that cause scripts to fail
• See how Bash's read line and history libraries can save typing when getting user input
• Build shell scripts that get information from the Web

Who This Book Is For

Developers, programmers, and open source enthusiasts who want to write scripts using Bash on multiple platforms

From the Back Cover

Learn how to effectively utilize the Bash shell in your programming. This refreshed and expanded third edition has been updated to Bash 5.2, and many scripts have been rewritten to make them more idiomatically Bash, taking better advantage of features specific to Bash. It is easy to read, understand, and will teach you how to get to grips with Bash programming without drowning you in pages and pages of syntax.

Using this book you will be able to use the shell efficiently, make scripts run faster using expansion and external commands, and understand how to overcome many common mistakes that cause scripts to fail. This book is perfect for all beginning Linux and Unix system administrators who want to be in full control of their systems, and really get to grips with Bash programming.

The Bash shell is a complete programming language, not merely a glue to combine external Linux commands. By taking full advantage of Shell internals, Shell programs can perform as snappily as utilities written in C or other compiled languages. And you will see how, without assuming UNIX lore, you can write professional Bash programs through standard programming techniques.

You will:

• Use the Bash shell to write utilities and accomplish most programming tasks
• Replace many external commands with shell parameter expansion making scripts very fast
• Avoid many common mistakes that cause scripts to fail
• See how Bash's read line and history libraries can save typing when getting user input
• Build shell scripts that get information from the Web

Review Quotes

"This is an excellent reference book for those who need to write Bash scripts. It is well organized, logically presented, and covers all the major commands and structures that are necessary to write useful scripts. ... Each chapter ends with a summary, a list of the commands introduced, and some exercises for the reader to try in order to practice the skills they have just learned." (Michael Oudshoorn, Computing Reviews, February 15, 2024)

About the Author

Jayant Varma is the founder of OZ Apps (www.oz-apps.com), a consulting and development company providing IT solutions. He is an experienced developer with more than 30 years of industry experience spread across several countries. As well as being a university lecturer in Australia where he currently resides, he is the author of a number of books topics like SwiftUI Lua and Xcode as well as Open Source topics like Linux, Bash and Shell Scripting . He loves to travel and finds Europe to be his favorite destination.
Chris F.A. Johnson was introduced to Unix in 1990 and learned shell scripting because there was no C compiler on the system. His first major project was a menu-driven, user-extensible database system with report generator. Chris is now retired and currently resides in Toronto, Canada.