The key to mastering any Unix system, especially Linux and Mac OS X, is a thorough knowledge of shell scripting. Scripting is a way to harness and customize the power of any Unix system, and it's an essential skill for any Unix users, including system administrators and professional OS X developers. But beneath this simple promise lies a treacherous ocean of variations in Unix commands and standards.
"bash Cookbook" teaches shell scripting the way Unix masters practice the craft. It presents a variety of recipes and tricks for all levels of shell programmers so that anyone can become a proficient user of the most common Unix shell -- the bash shell -- and cygwin or other popular Unix emulation packages. Packed full of useful scripts, along with examples that explain how to create better scripts, this new cookbook gives professionals and power users everything they need to automate routine tasks and enable them to truly manage their systems -- rather than have their systems manage them.
Customer Reviews:
Avg. Customer Rating: 4.5 / 5.0
Good book to read:
I like this book. I will recommend it to someone who has some bash experience since it's not organized as a reference or study guide.
it was worth waiting for it:
More than ten years after the first edition of Learning the bash Shell (In a Nutshell (O'Reilly)) came out, there appeared a book that sums up all the experience and expertise the authors have gained since those times using this shell. If you're new to Unix/Linux, start with the work linked in above, but if you have been using either of these systems for some time and you would like to learn how to make your life easier, then this is the book for you. Why? Because it concentrates on teaching you how to... more info
cookbook is right- teaches you nothing and awful for a novice:
When I read the description the book said that "bash Cookbook" teaches shell scripting the way Unix masters practice the craft." Not even close. This book doesn't teach a thing. All it gives is "recipes-" solutions for problems that you may never even encounter. Also, these recipes are directed at people with a ton of experience in the shell already. They reference tons of commands with functions that vary over the entirety of what the shell can do without even an index that gives one sentence descriptions... more info
What I've been waiting for!:
This book is indeed a "Cookbook"; nice examples on how to do lots of stuff. It is nicely categorized and the explanations/discussions are easy to follow. The authors seem to have lots of experience, and are honest enough to even explain when NOT to use bash; when for example perl would do better. Highly recommended if you want to get stuff done using bash.
