IBM AIX – Shell Programming (AIX3)

Course content:

• Principles of working in the shell
1. What is a file, file types, file operations
2. What is a shell script, ways to execute it
3. Shell metacharacters
4. Process input and output, redirection, pipes
5. Running and controlling background processes
6. Command substitution

• Variables
1. Setting and referencing variable values
2. Script arguments as variables, the shift command
3. Variable attributes, export, readonly
4. Examples of variables for configuring user environment

• Return values
1. Meaning and referencing the exit status of a process or script
2. exit command
3. test command
4. Conditional command execution

• Signals
1. Purpose of interprocess signals
2. Sending signals with kill
3. Handling signals and using trap

• Branching and loops
1. if-then-else constructs
2. while and until loops
3. for loop
4. case statement
5. Using break and continue in loops

• Other shell commands
1. echo and print commands
2. read command
3. Handling script options with getopts
4. Setting shell parameters with set

• Arithmetic
1. Using expr and let for integer operations
2. Declaring and using integer variables, implicit let
3. bc command for floating point arithmetic

• Additional shell tools
1. Defining and using arrays
2. Shell functions
3. typeset/declare command
4. Aliases
5. eval command

• Advanced variable features
1. Working with strings in variables
2. Setting extended variable attributes with typeset

• Text processing tools
1. tr, cut and paste commands
2. Regular expressions
3. grep and egrep

• Complex text processing commands
1. Stream editor (sed)
2. awk syntax and usage
3. awk text processing principles
4. awk commands and variables
5. Loops, branching and other features built into awk