FreeBSD6 Unleashed

Why Shell Programming Matters to You

Shell programming is sometimes shunned in favor of scripting in Perl and other interpreted languages, and thought of as simply a glorified version of DOS batch programming—but as a UNIX administrator, you’ll find that being able to write and interpret shell scripts is a central skill. True, in its simplest form, shell programming is like DOS batch programming in that you can use it to execute a list of commands stored in a file that could also be executed from the command line. However, the shell programs you might write can have far greater flexibility and sophistication than a simple DOS batch program, and shell scripting has certain unique advantages even over languages such as Perl or C.

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