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Minishell: As Beautiful As A Shell

This document describes a project to create a basic shell (minishell) in C. The mandatory part of the project involves implementing basic shell functionality like showing a prompt, launching executables, and supporting built-in commands like echo, cd, pwd, etc. Redirections like < and | must also be supported. The bonus part suggests enhancing the shell with additional functionality like command history, line editing, and supporting more advanced features like &&, ||, and wildcards similar to bash.

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287 views7 pages

Minishell: As Beautiful As A Shell

This document describes a project to create a basic shell (minishell) in C. The mandatory part of the project involves implementing basic shell functionality like showing a prompt, launching executables, and supporting built-in commands like echo, cd, pwd, etc. Redirections like < and | must also be supported. The bonus part suggests enhancing the shell with additional functionality like command history, line editing, and supporting more advanced features like &&, ||, and wildcards similar to bash.

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All Caps
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
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Minishell

As beautiful as a shell

Summary: The objective of this project is for you to create a simple shell. Yes, your
own little bash or zsh. You will learn a lot about processes and file descriptors.
Contents
I Introduction 2

II Common Instructions 3

III Mandatory part 4

IV Bonus part 6

1
Chapter I

Introduction

The existence of shells is linked to the very existence of IT. At the time, all coders agreed
that communicating with a computer using aligned 1/0 switches was seriously
irritating. It was only logical that they came up with the idea to communicate with
a computer using interactive lines of commands in a language somewhat close
to english.

With Minishell, you’ll be able to travel through time and come back to problems
people faced when Windows didn’t exist.

2
Chapter II

Common Instructions

• Your project must be written in accordance with the Norm. If you have bonus
files/functions, they are included in the norm check and you will receive a 0 if there
is a norm error inside.

• Your functions should not quit unexpectedly (segmentation fault, bus error, double
free, etc) apart from undefined behaviors. If this happens, your project will be
considered non functional and will receive a 0 during the evaluation.

• All heap allocated memory space must be properly freed when necessary. No leaks
will be tolerated.

• If the subject requires it, you must submit a Makefile which will compile your
source files to the required output with the flags -Wall, -Wextra and -Werror, and
your Makefile must not relink.

• Your Makefile must at least contain the rules $(NAME), all, clean, fclean and
re.

• To turn in bonuses to your project, you must include a rule bonus to your Makefile,
which will add all the various headers, librairies or functions that are forbidden on
the main part of the project. Bonuses must be in a different file _bonus.{c/h}.
Mandatory and bonus part evaluation is done separately.

• If your project allows you to use your libft, you must copy its sources and its
associated Makefile in a libft folder with its associated Makefile. Your project’s
Makefile must compile the library by using its Makefile, then compile the project.

• We encourage you to create test programs for your project even though this work
won’t have to be submitted and won’t be graded. It will give you a chance
to easily test your work and your peers’ work. You will find those tests especially
useful during your defence. Indeed, during defence, you are free to use your tests
and/or the tests of the peer you are evaluating.

• Submit your work to your assigned git repository. Only the work in the git reposi-
tory will be graded. If Deepthought is assigned to grade your work, it will be done
after your peer-evaluations. If an error happens in any section of your work during
Deepthought’s grading, the evaluation will stop.

3
Chapter III

Mandatory part

Program name minishell


Turn in files
Makefile Yes
Arguments
External functs. printf, malloc, free, write, open, read, close,
fork, wait, waitpid, wait3, wait4, signal, kill,
exit, getcwd, chdir, stat, lstat, fstat, execve,
dup, dup2, pipe, opendir, readdir, closedir,
strerror, errno
Libft authorized Yes
Description Write a shell

Your shell should:


• Show a prompt when waiting for a new command

• Search and launch the right executable (based on the PATH variable or by using
relative or absolute path) like in bash

• It must implement the builtins like in bash:


◦ echo with option ’-n’
◦ cd with only a relative or absolute path
◦ pwd without any options
◦ export without any options
◦ unset without any options
◦ env without any options and any arguments
◦ exit without any options
• ; in the command should separate commands like in bash

• ’ and " should work like in bash except for multiline commands

• Redirections < > “>>” should work like in bash except for file descriptor aggregation

4
Minishell As beautiful as a shell

• Pipes | should work like in bash

• Environment variables ($ followed by characters) should work like in bash

• $? should work like in bash

• ctrl-C, ctrl-D and ctrl-\ should have the same result as in bash

5
Chapter IV

Bonus part

• If the Mandatory part is not perfect don’t even think about bonuses

• You don’t need to do all the bonuses

• Redirection “<<” like in bash

• History and line editing with Termcaps (man tgetent for examples)

◦ Edit the line where the cursor is located.


◦ Move the cursor left and right to be able to edit the line at a specific loca-
tion. Obviously new characters have to be inserted between the existing ones
similarly to a classic shell.
◦ Use up and down arrows to navigate through the command history which we
will then be able to edit if we feel like it (the line, not the history).
◦ Cut, copy, and/or paste all or part of a line using the key sequence you prefer.
◦ Move directly by word towards the left or the right using ctrl+LEFT and
ctrl+RIGHT.
◦ Go directly to the beginning or the end of a line by pressing home and end.
◦ Write AND edit a command over a few lines. In that case, we would love that
ctrl+UP and ctrl+DOWN allow to go from one line to another in the command
while remaining in the same column or otherwise the most appropriate column.

• &&, || with parenthesis for priorities, like in bash

• wilcard * like in bash

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