Bashing the Shell: Advanced Scripting

Martin Kealey http://lca2015.linux.org.au/schedule/... You may know Bash as the command-line interpreter for most Linux users, but it is also the default shell script interpreter in many Linux distributions. This tutorial would suit people who: have fallen into being a sysadmin and need to understand what they've gotten their hands on; have been using the command-line for a while and have started writing small scripts to automate some of your tasks, but have often encountered strange or puzzling behaviour; have tried looking at the scripts in /etc/init.d, and been found gibbering under the bed hours later; want to understand the differences between classic Bourne shell, POSIX shell, Bash, Dash and Ksh; have used other programming languages but have found the Shell too arcane. To gain the most benefit from this tutorial, it would be helpful to have either some programming experience, or at least a year of reasonably extensive use of the command-line. Included: a brief history of Shells process & environment management common pitfalls and techniques to avoid them guidance on "best practice" special features for interactive use when to give up and use something else Bring your problems, curiosity, and curly questions, for a hands-on session with worked examples.