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Unit - III: Using The Unix

This document discusses various Unix command line concepts including: 1. The structure of Unix commands, including command terminators like ; and & to run commands sequentially or in the background. 2. Meta characters like <, >, |, and how they control command flow and I/O redirection. 3. Creating shell scripts to bundle commands together and accept arguments through $0 and $*. 4. Using output from commands as arguments by enclosing them in backticks. 5. Shell variables and how they can be accessed, modified, and exported for use in subshells. 6. Additional I/O redirection operators like 2> to redirect standard error. 7. Common

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Siva Kumar
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30 views

Unit - III: Using The Unix

This document discusses various Unix command line concepts including: 1. The structure of Unix commands, including command terminators like ; and & to run commands sequentially or in the background. 2. Meta characters like <, >, |, and how they control command flow and I/O redirection. 3. Creating shell scripts to bundle commands together and accept arguments through $0 and $*. 4. Using output from commands as arguments by enclosing them in backticks. 5. Shell variables and how they can be accessed, modified, and exported for use in subshells. 6. Additional I/O redirection operators like 2> to redirect standard error. 7. Common

Uploaded by

Siva Kumar
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
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Download as PPTX, PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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Unit - III

Using the Unix


Contents
 Command Line Structure
 Meta Characters
 Creating New Commands
 Command Arguments and Parameters
 Program Output as Arguments
 Shell Variables
 More on I/O Redirection
 Looping in Shell Programs
Command Line Structure
• The simplest command is a single word
,usually naming a file for execution

• A command usually ends with a newline, but


a semicolon ; is also a command terminator
• is identical to typing the commands on
different lines.In particular who does not run
until date has finished
• Try sending the output of “date;who” through
pipe
• This might not be what you expected, because
only output of who goes to wc.
• Parenthesis can be used to group commands
• Data flowing through pipe can be tapped and placed in a file
with the tee command

• Another Command terminator is & , used to run a long running


command in background while you continue to type interactive
commands
• The various special characters interpreted by
shell such as <,>,|,;,& control how shell runs
Meta Characters
Creating New Commands
• Given a sequence of commands that is to be repeated more
than a few times, it would be convenient to make it into a
“new” command with its own name.
• Suppose you intend to count users frequently with the
pipeline. i.e

– The first step was to create a ordinary fie that contains ‘ who |wc –l’
i.e.

– Run the shell with its input coming from the file nu instead of the
terminal
i.e
– Make nu executable
– And thereafter you can invoke with
• To make nu part of repertoire, move it to private
bin directory and add /usr/you/bin to search path

• Of course, your path should be set properly by the


.profile ,so you dont have to reset it every time you
login
Command Arguments and Parameters

• Suppose we want to make a program called ex


to change the mode of a file to executable. so,
is a shorthand for
• The only new thing we need to know is how to
tell cx what the name of the file is ,since it will
be different each time cx is run.
• The shell provides a shorthand “$*” that mean all the arguments.
• The proper way to define cx then is
• With $* added to repertoire, you can make some convenient shell files lc,m.
• The arguments to shell files need not be file names.
• For example, consider searching a telephone directory. If
you have a file named that contains lines like
/usr/you/lib/phone-book that contains lines like

then the grep command can be used to search it.


Let’s make a directory assistance program, where we will
call 411 in honor of the telephone directory assistance
number where we live.
• So if you revise 411 to look like

The $* will be replaced by the arguments , but it


will be passed to grep as a single argument even if it
contains spaces.
• A novel use of $0 is in the implementations of
the programs 2,3,4.. Which print their output
in many columns

• The implementations of 2,3,.. are identical


,infact they are links to the same file
• The –t option turns of the heading at the top of the
page and the –ln option sets the page length to n lines.
• The name of the program becomes the number of
columns argument to pr,so the output is printed a row
at a time in the number of columns specified by $0.
Program Output as Arguments
• Let us turn now from command line arguments within
a shell file to generation of arguments.
• Certainly file name expansion from meta characters
like * is the most common way to generate
arguments, but another good way is by running a
program.
• The output of any program can be placed in a
command line by enclosing the invocation in back
quotes `...`.

• A small change illustrates that `...` is interpreted


inside “.... “
• Suppsoe you want to send mail to a list of
people whose login names are in the file
mailinglist.

• A slightly different approach is to convert the


fiel mailinglist into a program that prints the
lsit of names.
• Now the mailing the letter to people on the
list becomes

• The second version of mailinglist with a pick


program to modify the userlist interactively,
sends the letter to don and mb.
Shell Variables

• The shell has variables , which in shell jargon,


sometimes called parameters
• Shell variables can be created, accessed and
modified
– is and assignment that changes
the search path
– The value of a variable is extracted by preceding
the name by a dollar sign.
• One of the common uses of variables is to
remember long strings such as parenthesis.

• The shell built-in command set displays the


values of all your defined variables
• The value of a variable is associated with the shell that creates it, and is
not automatically passed to shell’s children.

• A shell fiile cannot change the value of a variable.,because the shell file is
run by sub-shell.
• There are times when using a shell file to
change shell variables is useful
– To add a new directory to your PATH
• The shell therefore provides a command
‘.’(dot) that executes the command in a file in
the current shell rather than in a sub-shell.
• The other way to set the value of a variable in a sub-shell is to assign
to it explicitly on the command line before the command itself.

• The . mechanism is used to change the value of a variable


permanently , while the inline assignment should be used for
temporary changes
• Consider again searching /user/games for
commands, with the directory not in your
PATH.
• When you want to make the value of a
variable accessible in sub-shells, the shell’s
export command is used.
More on I/O Redirection
• Te standard error was invented so that error
messages would always appear on the terminal.

• Every program has three default files established


when it starts,numbered by small integers called
file descriptors.The standard input 0, the standard
output 1 and the standard error output 2
• Sometimes programs produce output on the
standard error even when they work properly.
• It is also possible to merge two output streams
Looping in Shell Programs

• Shell is a programming language. It has


variables,loops and decision making and so
on.

• For example, the for statement to echo file


names one per line is just,
• Another example, to compare the old version of
chapter2(kept in the directory old) with the current one.

• Depending on the size of the fpr, it’s sometimes better to


write it all on one-line
• Don’t use for loop when individual command
loops over filename

is inferior to

• The links to a single file that can be made,


once the file 2 has been written by
• A more interesting use of for , we could use
pick to select which files to compare with
those in the backup directory.

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