In this quick reference, you'll find everything you need to know about the bash shell. Whether you print it out or read it on the screen, this PDF gives you the answers to the annoying questions that always come up when you're writing shell scripts: What characters do you need to quote? How do you get variable substitution to do exactly what you want? How do you use arrays? It's also helpful for interactive use.
If you're a Unix user or programmer, or if you're using bash on Windows, you'll find this quick reference indispensable.
Arnold Robbins, an Atlanta native, is a professional programmer and technical author. He has worked with Unix systems since 1980, when he was introduced to a PDP-11 running a version of Sixth Edition Unix. He has been a heavy AWK user since 1987, when he became involved with gawk, the GNU project's version of AWK. As a member of the POSIX 1003.2 balloting group, he helped shape the POSIX standard for AWK. He is currently the maintainer of gawk and its documentation. He is also coauthor of the sixth edition of O'Reilly's Learning the vi Editor. Since late 1997, he and his family have been living happily in Israel.
bash is a shell. It's the standard shell for Linux systems and Mac OS X (starting with Panther). It's also available on many other Unix systems.
This is a very good bash quick reference in the O'Reilly Short Cuts Series. The O'Reilly Short Cuts Series consists of PDFs which: a)focus on a specific topic [In this case, bash.]; (b) are short, usually less than 100 pages [In this case, 72 pages.]; (c) are easy to use [I found it so.].
What did I expect from this PDF quick reference?
The shell I use (almost exclusively) is bash. I've been using it for a bit more than 4 years.
I expected by reading this quick reference through I'd get a good review of bash. I hoped in the process I'd learn a few things about bash.
I also hoped I'd think it was worth keeping this PDF around as a quick reference to bash.
Did I get what I expected?
Yes!
I did get a good review of bash. And I did learn several things.
I do plan on keeping the PDF around as a quick reference to bash. I'll use the quick reference
for the few times I write a bash script (I usually use Perl for scripts I write for my Linux system.) and for questions that come up during my extensive use of bash interactively.
What did I especially like?
I especially liked: (a) the cover page which includes two paragraphs on the intent of the PDF and the table of contents; (b) the clear division into sections; (c) the section on Variables.
I like the whole idea of the Short Cuts Series. I especially like that Short Cuts are (duh) short.
What did I not like?
There were a few things I didn't like,
for example: (a) I wasn't clear on the difference between the history file and the history list; (b) there is no index.
I also ran into a few "clerical errors". E.g. "The Bourne shell is still be found in ...". I don't generally care about such errors unless they confuse me, and none of the errors I noticed confused me. However, some people care more about such errors than I do.
Who is this Short Cut right for?
This Short Cut would be good for someone who uses (or will be using) bash and wants a quick reference to bash. As mentioned earlier, I found it useful for reviewing bash.
This quick reference would not be good for someone who can be characterized by any of the following: (a) isn't using (or going to be using) bash; (b) really is looking for a reference to utilities that you can run from bash on the operating system they are running on; (c) is convinced they know bash so well they don't need a quick reference; (d) doesn't know bash at all and really wants a tutorial.
