The shopt builtin offers 53 settings that can alter how bash behaves. Read this post and then refer to bash's man page to follow up on how these settings might work for you. If you haven’t tried it ...

Check if a file is really a file, whether a string contains anything, and whether you can run a program with these vital patterns.

Simply put, a Shell Script is a program that is run by a UNIX/Linux shell. It is a file that contains a series of commands which are executed sequentially as if they were entered on the command line ...

The first software that I was actually paid to develop was a 2-page shell script that prompted the user for a dozen or so pieces of information, before launching a set of cooperating processes. Those ...

You need to package up a bunch of files, send them somewhere, and do something with them at the destination. It isn’t an uncommon scenario. The obvious answer is to create an archive — a zip or tar ...

It is easy to dismiss bash — the typical Linux shell program — as just a command prompt that allows scripting. Bash, however, is a full-blown programming language. I wouldn’t presume to tell you that ...

If you don't love the shell you're using on your Linux system, change it! There are plenty, including bash, fish, ksh, tcsh, zsh. There are quite a few shells on Linux system and more that can be ...

This article is reprinted from the book A Practical Guide to Linux Commands, Editors, and Shell Programming 3rd edition, with permission of the author and publisher ...