Do you want to brush up your shell scripting skills, but can never really find a decent resource that gives you good examples? Or maybe you’ve just never had the opportunity to learn any scripting at all. Well, I just found a fantastic site that so far seems to be a really awesome review/intro/guide to Bash Shell scripting (warning: I’ve only perused the first couple of sections so far–there is a ton of information here). I don’t know how I haven’t run across this page before, because it appears to have been around for a while. The Bash shell is a standard component of just about all Linux and UNIX systems these days, and Windows users can get it with a tool such as Cygwin to get the functionality available too (I’ll be writing a guide to using Cygwin on Windows soon, but until I do, take a look at Lifehacker’s excellent Introduction To Cygwin series).
Here is a snippet from the Intro of the Advanced Bash-Scripting Guide:
This tutorial assumes no previous knowledge of scripting or programming, but progresses rapidly toward an intermediate/advanced level of instruction . . . all the while sneaking in little snippets of UNIX® wisdom and lore. It serves as a textbook, a manual for self-study, and a reference and source of knowledge on shell scripting techniques. The exercises and heavily-commented examples invite active reader participation, under the premise that the only way to really learn scripting is to write scripts.
The doc reads easily, and progresses fast, but doesn’t assume you are already an expert (something many books and tutorials are guilty of). It covers many topics in detail that most other documents simply gloss over. This is a good one folks, I highly recommend it.
Advanced Bash-Scripting Guide [The Linux Documentation Project]
