GNU Bash Reference Manual by Chet Ramey and Brian Fox Paperback (6"x9"), 180 pages ISBN 0954161777 RRP £19.95 ($29.95) "An essential resource .... the most detailed coverage available for all aspects of Bash" --- Linux User and Developer Magazine (Issue 37, Mar 2004) Get a printed copy>>>

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3 Basic Shell Features

Bash is an acronym for ‘Bourne-Again SHell’. The Bourne shell is the traditional Unix shell originally written by Stephen Bourne. All of the Bourne shell builtin commands are available in Bash, The rules for evaluation and quoting are taken from the POSIX specification for the `standard' Unix shell.

This chapter briefly summarizes the shell's `building blocks': commands, control structures, shell functions, shell parameters, shell expansions, redirections, which are a way to direct input and output from and to named files, and how the shell executes commands.