

To that end, the first lesson you must learn before writing a shell script is that there are two fundamentally different sets of shell script syntax: the Bourne shell syntax and the C shell syntax. The C shell syntax is more comfortable to many C programmers because the syntax is somewhat similar. However, the Bourne shell syntax is significantly more flexible and thus more widely used.

For this reason, this document only covers the Bourne shell syntax. The second hard lesson you will invariably learn is that each dialect of Bourne shell syntax differs slightly. This document includes only pure Bourne shell syntax and a few BASH-specific extensions. Where BASH-specific syntax is used, it is clearly noted. The terminology and subtle syntactic differences can be confusing-even a bit overwhelming at times had Dorothy in The Wizard of Oz been a programmer, you might have heard them exclaim, "BASH and ZSH and CSH, Oh My!" Fortunately, once you get the basics, things generally fall into place as long as you avoid using shell-specific features. Stay on the narrow road and your code will be portable. Some common shells are listed below, grouped by script syntax:īcsh (C shell to Bourne shell translator/emulator) #Uninstall sep quickmenu mac code# Many of these shells have more than one variation. Most of these variations are denoted by prefixing the name of an existing shell with additional letters that are short for whatever differentiates them from the original shell.
