Shell Scripting

[Andrew Brain or Yong Ji]

hello,

I'm after recommended books and/or web sites to teach me HPUX Shell Programming, pref. Korn, C or Posix.

I'm a novice at scripting and want to learn it quickly, I need examples of scripts more than desciptions of expressions, metacharacters and variables.

[Brian M. Fisher]

The best way I found to get an in depth education in shell scripting in a short time is to take the HP course Posix Shell Programming. This is a 4 day course that will overload you with information in a short period of time. This is the best "book" I have found, although I do admit an expensive one.

Brian
<*(((>< er

[Dale McNamara]

One of the better sources for this that we use are the O'Reily "Nutshell" books such as Ksh/Csh in a Nutshell for starters.

[Thomas G. Tudrej]

Hi,

For ksh, go right to the source and try "The Kornshell, Command and Programming language" by M. I. Bolsky and D. G. Korn, the guy who wrote ksh. There are two versions of this book out there, the newer one describes the new version of ksh with OO features, this is not the one that comes standard on HP so you might want to get the older one.

TTudrej

[Tim Malnati]

Hands-on Kornshell93 Programming (Barry Rosenberg, Addison Wesley 1998) gets my nod. This is a very well written text with each function explained in detail and each used in a short script. The output results of the script are also shown so you don't need sit by a computer to test and see what's going on. It spends a lot of time dealing most of the important scripting options and function reference pages that look similar to man pages without the clutter (great for reference down the street). About the only thing they missed in my mind is designating which functions apply to the 88 standard vs the 93 version of the korn shell. This book impressed me to the extent that I spent the time to mail the author with my complements.

[Chris Amick_1]

I teach shell programming at a local communiuty college that deald with "vanilla" UNIX. Going to a community college may be a low cost solution. The book I use: UNIX Shell Programming (ISBN: 0-672-48448-X) is an industry tried and true standard for most Sys Admins. HP does have a Shell Programming book on their Instant Information CD, which is helpful for HP-UX alone.

Hope this helps.

Chris

[Chris Amick_1]

I teach shell programming at a local communiuty college that deals with "vanilla" UNIX. Going to a community college may be a low cost solution. The book I use: UNIX Shell Programming (ISBN: 0-672-48448-X) is an industry tried and true standard for most Sys Admins. HP does have a Shell Programming book on their Instant Information CD, which is helpful for HP-UX alone.

Hope this helps.

Chris

[Rick Garland]

A couple of books I have found to very useful are:

UNIX Shells by Example
Ellie Quigley
ISBN# 0-13-460866-6

UNIX Shell Programming
Lowell Jay and Ted Burns
ISBN# 0-471-59941-7

[Leslie Chaim]

A great book on C is "C Programming a Modern Approach". The spiral approach of K.N. King is second to none. Just see the reviews at amazon.com.

For more info, check the authors website http://www.knking.com.

[RikTytgat]

Hi,

Definitely O'Reilly!!!

Bye,
Rik

[Rita C Workman]

I know you asked about books for this....and all the above are good.
But I thought I'd mention there is also a class on this that HP offers.... learning from a book is good - but sometimes having some hands on an someone to show you how to do it really helps when your getting started too !!.

Regards,

....and don't forget to assign pts

[Shannon Petry]

I agree with both the mentions of "O'Reilly" and a class. OReilly's Learning the Korn shell is very good, as well as Unix power tools. Hands on is the best approach to learning at either a specialized HP class, or local university. This is assuming you have the time(which it sounds like you do not)
Just a side note to scripting. Comment them like crazy! If you ever leave, the next sys-admin will have to understand what you did. Also, next year, you may not remember why you did something.
I have attached a scipt I wrote a while ago, which may help you a bit. While not the best (I was in a hurry writing parts of this) it should get ya goin with functions, variables, redirection, etc. It is the equivalent to Microcrap's "Find Fast Utility", which most of my designers and engineers use to find cad/cam data.

Best Regards,
Shannon

PS. I think it is very rude for anyone to say "...dont forget to assign points". The goal of these forums should be to learn and share knowlege, and not to get brownie points or kiss butt!

[Rita C Workman]

My apologies....it was not meant to be rude.

I have enjoyed the information on this forum....possibly I'll come back to it sometime....

Once again my apologies ..

[James R. Ferguson]

Hi:

OK. One I liked for the fact that it gave a quick overview of the Bourne, KSH, C and POSIX shells was HP's "Shells: User's Guide" [available at http://docs.hp.com/hpux/os/ in PDF or HTML format].

I encountered it in hardcopy. It has an easy-to-read format with simple examples covering some of the "guts" of shell programming. I think it's got good value for the beginner, providing an instant comfort level and simple reference.

...JRF...

[Chris Amick_1]

The HP "Shells: User's Guide" can also be found on the HP Instant Information CDROM.

Hope this helps.

Chris