Rating: 
Summary: Classic Shell Script Programming Introduction
Review: About 10 years ago, I bought a copy of this book, because it was the required textbook for a course entitled "Introduction to Unix Shell Script Programming". In the intervening years, I lost my original copy (actually think it was swiped by a co-worker). Occasionally, I've missed not having my copy of the "Kochan & Wood" book at hand, especialy when I needed a reminder of how do some little thing in Shell quickly. (I find O'Reilly's "llama" Perl book of similar value as a Perl quick reference.) Anyway, I am glad I finally took the time to shop around and find a mint condition replacement! A quick review of my new copy tells me why I always missed it. It's a well-written, down to earth, and comprehensive overview of Shell....and is especially valuable for those who are new to Unix/Linux/BSD/OSX etc. For the "old timers", it's a nice, nostalgic, but still relevant, memory-jogger.
Rating:
Summary: Classic Shell Script Programming Introduction
Review: About 10 years ago, I bought a copy of this book, because it was the required textbook for a course entitled "Introduction to Unix Shell Script Programming". In the intervening years, I lost my original copy (actually think it was swiped by a co-worker). Occasionally, I've missed not having my copy of the "Kochan & Wood" book at hand, especialy when I needed a reminder of how do some little thing in Shell quickly. (I find O'Reilly's "llama" Perl book of similar value as a Perl quick reference.) Anyway, I am glad I finally took the time to shop around and find a mint condition replacement! A quick review of my new copy tells me why I always missed it. It's a well-written, down to earth, and comprehensive overview of Shell....and is especially valuable for those who are new to Unix/Linux/BSD/OSX etc. For the "old timers", it's a nice, nostalgic, but still relevant, memory-jogger.
Rating: 
Summary: Somewhat dated....
Review: Although published in 1990, this book could still function well as an introduction to UNIX and (Bourne) shell programming, provided one is aware of some changes to the shell in most implementations of UNIX since that date. Also, the Perl language has come on strong in recent years, and depending on your tastes (and time), that language can be used with great efficiency to do the tasks that are traditionally done in the shell. After a quick review of the basics of UNIX, the authors give a purely descriptive explanation of the UNIX shell in chapter 3. Emphasizing that it is an interpretive language, the most commonly used shell commands are discussed in chapter 4, starting with a discussion of regular expressions. The cut, paste, sed, tr, grep, uniq, and sort commands are treated in detail. In chapter 5, one begins the actual task of creating shell programs using shell variables. There is no data typing in the shell, so values can be assigned to variables without noting their type as integer, float, etc. The authors only briefly discuss the mechanism in shell programming. The method by which the shell interprets quotation characters is covered in the next chapter. The single, double, backslash, and back quote characters are discussed in detail. Noting that arithmetic operations are done on values stored in variables in the shell, the authors show to proceed with these operations using the expr program. The mechanisms for passing arguments to shell programs is treated in chapter 7, the authors showing how to write shell programs that take arguments typed on the command line. The role of positional variables for delaying assignment after normal command line processing is discussed. The $#, and $* variables are discussed briefly, with $# getting set to the number of arguments typed on the command line and $* used for programs taking a variable number of arguments. The shift command is explained well as a method to allow one to use more than nine arguments to a program. The ability of shell programs to execute decision blocks is treated in chapter 8, via the if statement. The role of the test and exit commands are in if blocks are discussed in good detail. In addition, the case command, familiar to C programmers is introduced as a technique to allow a single value to be compared against other values. The && and || constructs are used to show the reader how to execute commands that are contingent on the success or failure of the preceding command. Program loops, via the for, while, and until commands are discussed in chapter 9, followed in the next chapter by a discussion of how to read data from the terminal or from a file using the read command. The ability to perform I/O redirection is discussed also. Local and export variables are discussed in the next chapter on the user environment, and the authors give a good summary of how these work in shell programming. More discussion on parameter passing is done in chapter 12, with the different methods of parameter substitution given detailed treatment. The authors show how to use the $0 variable to check whether two or more programs have been executed, and how to use the set command to set shell options and to reassign positional parameters. This is followed in the next chapter by a discussion of the eval command, which makes the shell scan the command line twice before executing it, and the wait command, which will allow serialization in program execution. The trap and type commands are discussed also. The Korn shell is discussed in chapter 15, with emphasis on the features added to Korn shell that cannot be found in the Bourne shell. The vi and emacs capability of this shell is briefly discussed in this chapter. The differences between Korn shell functions and Bourne shell functions are discussed in detail by the authors. Most importantly, the ability of the Korn shell to do integer arithmetic without using the expr command is discussed via the let command, which is built-in to the Korn shell. Also, the capability of the Korn shell to support data typing is discussed, along with its pattern matching capabilities. Pattern matching is done most efficiently now using Perl however.
Rating:
Summary: The only book I carry
Review: Although this book is only thin, it is the most complete book for referencing command line and scripting.
Rating:
Summary: Dated, but fantastic
Review: I am a perl and C programmer, and I am very familiar with the shells outlined in this book. So the material was not particularly "new" for me. I can see how it would be difficult to understand for a user who was new to shell programming. If the intended audience is the intermediate unix user who knows something of programming, this book gets a full 5 star, my seal-of-approval rating. Terrific. One thing it is lacking is a brief mention of perl or of awk. In many cases, it is simpler to write: date | awk '{ print $2 }' instead of: date | cut -d' ' -f2 or, at least from the standpoint of understandability and readability. but the book doesnt claim to be a manual for awk, and oreilly has an excellent book on the subject. I continually recommend this book to people, and where ever I go, I find this book on the bookshelves of successful people.
Rating:
Summary: Dated, but fantastic
Review: I am a perl and C programmer, and I am very familiar with the shells outlined in this book. So the material was not particularly "new" for me. I can see how it would be difficult to understand for a user who was new to shell programming. If the intended audience is the intermediate unix user who knows something of programming, this book gets a full 5 star, my seal-of-approval rating. Terrific. One thing it is lacking is a brief mention of perl or of awk. In many cases, it is simpler to write: date | awk '{ print $2 }' instead of: date | cut -d' ' -f2 or, at least from the standpoint of understandability and readability. but the book doesnt claim to be a manual for awk, and oreilly has an excellent book on the subject. I continually recommend this book to people, and where ever I go, I find this book on the bookshelves of successful people.
Rating: 
Summary: First and only shell programming book I own
Review: I bought this book when it was originally published back in 1990. I started with little programming experience, and no shell programming experience. It brought me up to speed quickly. I no longer write many shell scripts; however, I still use it as a desk reference when I do. For any UNIX system administrator, this book (or one just like it) is essential. BTW, I have been looking for a better book all these years and haven't found one. It's not that I think this book is perfect, rather there just aren't many good books on this subject.
Rating:
Summary: A good book, but perhaps there is better...
Review: I found this book to be quite good, but there is a very harsh introduction to regular expressions with ed, sed etc.. I have referred to this book many times as a reference guide.
Rating:
Summary: The best book in UNIX bourne shell for beginners
Review: I have been using this book since 1992, and I have not seen anything better. First 100 pages should be mandatory for every person new to UNIX ( users, developers, systems administrators and system engineers ). There are errors, however I never got upset with that.
Rating:
Summary: The best Intro book to shell programming.
Review: I have had this book around for many years and I still
Find myself (and my colleagues) referring to this book.
Over the years I have bought many shell books and certainly
Have found other books that cover certain aspects at greater
Depth. For example, the book definitely lacks
a good coverage of awk and I have found O'reilly's sed & awk
to be a very useful awk book. I also like 'The new Korn Shell'
by Morris I. Bolsky and David G. Korn for it's indepth coverage
of the advanced features of Korn shell. But this is still
the best Introductory shell programming book that I have come across.
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