Learning the Bash Shell 3e (In a Nutshell (O'Reilly))

So this book is a bit older, but 95+% of Bash is still the same, and this book is a fantastic resource for learning to write Bash scripts and functions. I was able to automate so much of my work after reading the book. The author does a great job of explaining how the shell works so you know exactly why the code is the way it is.

Good reference and introduction to scripting. Covers all topics to move on to more competent books.

I used this book to learn Bash language! It was very easy to read,but it's not for advanced student (also the title says this...). I appreciated it.

Well-written and very useful.

The first three chapters were good enough. Carrying on from there, was like swallowing a bitter pill. I have never read a book where the author, basically gets his explanations complicated, confusing and leaving the reader completly lost. This is not for beginners. Beginners pls. look elsewhere.

I've told myself to get a book about bash so many times in the past that my Goodread`s Want to Read shelf was getting boringly monothematic. Last month I planned to get my hands on bash Cookbook but a comment on Amazon convinced me to dedicate my time to this title instead. To make it short, I'm not exactly enthusiast: some (just some!) parts were interesting; others (most!) were overly detailed and accompanied with complicated examples, a pain to get through. This is a book that clearly targets beginners, people with close to no experience with Linux and the bash shell. If you work on a daily basis with the penguin, you better move along. Ok so, let's imagine I recently moved from Windows to Linux and I want to explore what the bash shell offers me. What do I get off these 300 pages? Well, the book is divided in 3 parts: Very basic shell features. Basic shell scripting. Basic shell features. The first part, which covers the first three chapters, tells you about basic commands, such as "ls" and all the arguments it swallows. Unless you have never opened the terminal before, you might want to skip these pages. Next the authors introduce some basic shell scripting, starting from variable naming to arrays and flow control. This was, by far, the most interesting part of the whole book in my opinion, but still, the author has covered only the very basics. What I've found particularly annoying was the choice to list all the possible options available just to find out, later, that the book wasn't about system programming so that they would have not been explained. Finally, we leave the magic world of scripting and get introduced to other basic features, such as jobs: background foreground, handling signals. Throughout the book the authors use an example that gets improved as they introduce new concepts. This gets early out of control in my opinion: it's overly hard to follow, mainly for a beginner. A very annoying thing of this example is the fact that the authors names variables, functions and files using Alice in Wonderland: Alice, the Hatter, ... for real? Other examples are found in the book. They are short ad hoc code snippets found next to some command just explained. I've often ended up either using man or googling to find more. I don't really suggest the title, neither to those new to the bash shell, nor to those that are merely interested in scripting. This book covers a little of both, but doesn't really give any value. Suggested book(s): Linux Shell Scripting Cookbook As usual, you can find more reviews on my personal blog: http://books.lostinmalloc.com. Feel free to pass by and share your thoughts!

Clear explanation for a beginner or even for an expert that wants to revise sone notions

本の内容を書けば、bashの定番教科書みたいです。コマンドラインなら仕事中に手軽に読めるかと買ってみました。スキマ時間で基本のおさらいができて良かったです。残念ながら、PCテクみたいな本でなかったです。それに、コマンドラインの辞書みたいなものがよかったみたいで、仕事中にはむいてなかったです。洋書でコマンドラインのテク系辞書みたいなものが意外と見つからない。アマゾンの本の販売の事を書けば、洋書も手軽に買えていいですね。またいつか利用させていただくかもしれません。

It feels so anachronistic to be learning the bash shell in 2009, but I want to broaden my understanding of Linux and bash is a component part. For the beginner, like myself, this is an easy introduction. It begins with the purpose and nature of the shell, moves you into basic concepts of using the shell and then takes you into the more complex area of shell programming. Unlike a number of "Learning" books from O'Reilly, this one is very well written for its target audience, which is beginners. The approach is gradual, in small chunks, with lots of explanation. This is not a reference or tutorial for Linux, per se. It is about the bash shell and the Linux commands encountered are incidental to that goal. (The book, actually, is a survivor of the UNIX era.) Because of the author's approach, picking up knowledge of the fundamentals of the bash shell is (thankfully) a quick process. The more advanced lessons on scripting are somewhat lost on me because I don't operate in a server environment and, as a result, don't have a real world context for some of the examples. Some of the chapter exercises, however, are quite challenging and will keep me busy for a while. I am learning Linux and bash out of personal curiosity, so I don't know how much of this newly acquired knowledge I will use on anything resembling a regular basis, but the cool thing is that the book is obviously useful as a reference for those like me who will probably stay close to the beginner level. Overall, a very nice way to learn the bash shell. Jerry

Ce livre est vraiment un " must have " pour tout personne désirant connaitre le Shell ! par contre il est indispensable de maitriser l'anglais ! Parcourez-le , lisez-le : c'est formidable ! une vrai mine d'information... J'espère que mon humble contribution à la critique de ce livre pourra aidé tout futur linuxien quant au choix d'un EXCELLENT livre décrivant le Shell Bash et son usage...

Pues eso, que si trabajas en administración de sistemas Linux deberías tenerlo en tu mesilla por las noches...

Irgendwann kommt bei Linux der Punkt an dem man skripten muss. Und auch wenn Online-Foren und -Anleitungen zu Hauf existieren und die MANuals einiges hergeben brauche ich immer ein bisschen was schwarz auf weiss. Und diese Buch in voller O'Reilly-Qualität bietet mir genau das was ich brauche: reichlich Information strukturiert aufbereitet.