Bash Hackers Wiki Frontpage
The main motivation was to provide human-readable documentation and information to not force users to read every bit of the Bash manpage - which is PITA sometimes. The docs here are not meant as newbie tutorial, more as educational summary.
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Scripting and general information
Code snipplets
There is a section that holds small code snipplets.
How to....
Doing specific tasks: concepts, ways, ideas:
Small getopts tutorial (under construction!)
Bash syntax and operations
- General:
- Expansions and substitutions:
| Introduction to expansions and substitutions | |
|---|---|
{A,B,C} {A..C} | Brace expansion |
~/ ~root/ | Tilde expansion |
$FOO ${BAR%.mp3} | Parameter expansion |
`command` $(command) | Command substitution |
<(command) >(command) | Process substitution |
$((1 + 2 + 3)) $[4 + 5 + 6] | Arithmetic expansion |
… | Word splitting |
/data/*-av/*.mp? | Pathname expansion |
- Compound commands:
| Compound commands overview | |
|---|---|
| Grouping | |
{ …; } | command grouping |
( … ) | command grouping in a subshell |
| Conditionals | |
[[ ... ]] | conditional expression |
if …; then …; fi | conditional branching |
case … esac | pattern-based branching |
| Loops | |
for word in …; do …; done | classic for-loop |
for ((x=1; x<=10; x++)); do ...; done | C-style for-loop |
while …; do …; done | while loop |
until …; do …; done | until loop |
| Misc | |
(( ... )) | arithmetic evaluation |
select word in …; do …; done | user selections |
Command Descriptions
| A-G | |
|---|---|
| I-N | |
| let | arithmetic evaluation - an old fashioned way (Bash builtin) |
| O-T | |
| printf | “advanced echo” (Bash builtin) |
| read | getting input from stdin (Bash builtin) |
| set | control positional parameters and shell behaviour (Bash builtin) |
| shopt | set/get shell options (Bash builtin) |
| test | the classic test command (Bash builtin) |
| U-Z | |
Dictionary
Most wanted
| Statistics for Month: September 2008 | ||
|---|---|---|
| Rank | Views | Article |
| 1 | 850 | The printf command (August: Rank 1, 679 views) |
| 2 | 536 | The classic test command (August: Rank 2, 636 views) |
| 3 | 341 | Parameter expansion (August: Rank 9, 186 views) |
| 4 | 305 | Terminal codes (ANSI/VT100) introduction (August: Rank 4, 325 views) |
| 5 | 277 | Arithmetic expressions (August: Rank 4, 271 views) |
| 6 | 233 | Editing files with the ed text editor from scripts (August: Rank 8, 203 views) |
| 7 | 233 | Lock your script (against parallel run) (August: Rank 3, 351 views) |
| 8 | 224 | The basics of shell scripting (August: Rank 10, 165 views) |
| 9 | 208 | Handling positional parameters (August: Rank 6, 246 views) |
| 10 | 140 | Illustrated Redirection Tutorial (not in Augusts top 10) |
August total views (all wiki pages): 7986 views
Links
Bash related links
- Bash Hackers Forum - a place to ask questions and hopefully get answers, too
- Greg's wiki - Greg's wiki with massive information about Bash and UNIX® in general
lhunathis making a Bash Guide on Greg's wiki (designed for newbies)- Heiner's "Shell Dorado" - Tips, tricks, links - for every situation
Assorted Shell links
- History and development of the traditional Bourne shell family - very interesting and nice to read!
Contact
If you have critics or suggestions, please feel free to send a mail using the contact form below. If you have quick suggestions, you can also use the Wishlist (editable by everyone!).
It also would be nice to drop a line when
- it helped you
- it didn't help you (something missing / unclear)
- you like it
- you don't like it
- you found mistakes / bugs
Simply: Reader's feedback
Please also see the imprint if you have problems with the site and its contents (legality, …)!
Visits in irc.freenode.net, channel #bash 
