Top 10 Free Online Shell Scripting Books For You!

Top 10 Free Online Shell Scripting Books For You!

Are you new to Linux or Unix and seeking to learn all about shell scripting? Then these ten books can introduce you to the command line with best help.    Friday, September 05, 2014:  A computer program, shell script, is designed to be run by the Unix shell, which is a command line interpreter. It is a text file which contains a sequence of shell commands and constructs to perform a routine task. It's executed by entering the name of the script of the command line. A shell is a user interface which gives access to an operating system's services. It helps translate command lines at terminal into system actions. The shell has some in-built functions but most commands conduct external programs. Linux' text shells include Bash (Bourne Again SHell), Korn shell, C shell, tcsh, zsh and the Bourne sh. Writing a shell script's main advantage is that the commands and syntax get identical to typing them on the command line. So the user doesn't require to learn a new language. Shell scripts enables new commands to be created and also external programs to be wrapped into an environment which you can control. Shell scripts are sometimes used in system administration, system boot scripts, application start-up scripts, automation, package installation tools and so on. There are some finest shell scripting books which you can download for free. These books provide excellent introduction to use the command line. So start reading and learning more about shell scripting with these top 10 free books. 1. Conquering the Command Line : Written by Mark Bates, this 155-page book teaches how you can master and conquer the most useful command tools for Unix and Linux based systems. With this book you'll not only learn the command line tools but will also learn about the most helpful options and flags for those tools. The book covers topics like basics and navigation, cURL, Grep, Tar and also some extra commands. 2. Advanced Bash Scripting Guide : Written by Mendel Cooper this 945-page book offers an in-depth insight into at the art of scripting. It features the complete set of commands, utilities and tools for shell scripting. The book explains topics like basics, beyond the basics, commands and also some advanced ones like I/O Redirection, Arrays, Functions, Gotchas and Scripting with Style. 3. Bash Guide for Beginners : Written by Machtelt Garrels this 165-page book is a helpful guide for all those who are working on a UNIX or Unix-like system. The book covers bash scripts, writing and debugging scripts, everything about the bash environment, awk programming language, writing interactive scripts, catching signals and more. 4. Learn Vimscript the Hard Way : Written by Steve Losh this 241-page online book targets users of the Vim text editor who want to learn how to customize it. This book covers sections like basic Vim commands, in-depth knowledge of Vimscript as a programming language, how to create a sample plug-in for other Vim users and more. To read this book you need to install the latest version of Vim installed. 5. The Linux Command Line - 2nd Edition : Written by William D. Shotts, Jnr this 537-page book in PDF format gives you a broad overview of the Linux command line. This book gives an idea of how to get along with the command line interface in a larger scale. The book is divided into four parts: Learning The Shell, Configuration And The Environment, Common Tasks And Essential Tools and Writing Shell Scripts. 6. GNU Bash Reference Manual : Written by Chet Ramey and Brian Fox this 166-page book is the definitive reference for GNU Bash. The book explores Basic Shell Features, Shell Builtin Commands, Shell Variables, Bash Features, Job Control, Command Line Editing, Using History Interactively and Installing Bash. 7. LINUX: Rute User's Tutorial and Exposition : Written by Paul Sheer this 660-page book provides technical reference and acts as a teaching tool for new GNU/Linux users and also advanced administrators. The book offers a concise guide to the Linux system with explanations and practical examples. Its covered topics are command line, using Linux, key utilities like sed, C programming, shell scripting, HTTPd, Sendmail, Exim, advance shell scripting and networking. 8. Learn Regex the Hard Way : Written by Zed A. Shaw this book teaches Regular Expressions and also provides introduction to parsing. 9. Gawk: Effective AWK Programming : Written by Arnold D. Robbins this 508-page book acts like a user guide for GNU Awk. It is an introduction to awk programming language as it explains main features of the language and its syntax as well as GNU extensions. 10. C-shell Cookbook : Written by Malcolm J. Currie this 60-page book provides knowledge about some relevant techniques for creating C-shell scripts to improve productivity. It gets you started with some practical examples too. You can learn how to run a script, all about shell variables, arithmetic, string processing and how to deal with files.