Back to Search Results

Training Course Summary:

This hands on Korn Shell scripting course provides a comprehensive introduction to writing Korn shell scripts. Besides covering fundamental syntax for program flow control, variable assignment and substitution, I/O control, and mathematical expressions, it emphasizes the powerful features that are unique to this shell, including built-in string operators, variable typesetting/conversion, functions, and coprocess communication and control. The creative use of standard UNIX utilities within scripts to solve problems is stressed throughout. The course is designed for the administrators and programmers who are developing, testing, or integrating software on UNIX, as well as for advanced UNIX users.

Pre-Requisites:

Familiarity with UNIX file system and commands

Training Course Overview/Content:

Introduction
Shells: Bourne, Korn, C, bash
Korn Shell Environment
Startup Scripts (.profile, .kshrc)
Using ENV for automatic environment tailoring
Korn Shell Command Syntax
Commands
Options
Manipulating Input and Output
Redirection
Pipes
Aliases (alias, unalias)
How the Shell Finds Commands
Command History and Editing

Variables
Assigning Values to Variables
set and Special Variables
unset
Built-in Variables Known to Login Shell
The Environment- Exporting Variables
The Korn Shell as a Programming Language
Data Types (typeset)
Formatting
Base Conversion
Read Only and Other Special Attributes
Input/Output
Conditional Logic and Loops
Functions
Tests

Input/Output
Basic I/O Features
String and Field Processing
Streams and pipes (exec)
Terminal Information (COLUMNS, LINES, TERM)
stty
Shell Scripts
Creating Scripts
Executing Scripts
Passing Arguments to Scripts
Built-in Variables Known to Scripts
Setting Variables with read
Printing with print
Special Characters
Exiting with exit
Debugging

String Manipulation
String Comparison
String Relations
Concatenation
Substring Manipulations
Wildcards and Pattern Matching
Conditional Branching
If/Then
else/elif
Statement blocks
case Statement
Loops (for, while, until)
Simple Menus (select)

Math Operators and Functions
Dealing with Floating Point Numbers
Arrays
Declaring Arrays
Setting and Retrieving Values

Command Line Arguments
Positional Parameters
Manipulating Positional Parameters (set, sort, shift)
Analyzing Switches with getopts
Options Reserved Variables (OPTARG, OPTIND, IFS)
Manipulating Files within Scripts
File Operations
Testing Files and Directories
Changing Protections

Overview of File Manipulation Utilities
Input/Output Redirection
Editing a File from a Script
Scripting with ed or vi
UNIX Utilities to Manipulate Files
Regular Expressions
grep and egrep
The Stream Editor sed
sort
awk
Other Text File Utilities
Functions
Advantages of Functions
Writing Functions
Calling Functions
Functions Arguments
Returning Values
Local and Global Variables
Predefined Functions
Exporting Functions
Autoloading Functions
Returning a Value from a Function
Scope of Functions
Examples of Useful Functions

Session Control
Keyboard Suspend Function
Foreground and Background Jobs (bg, fg, %, jobs, wait, nohup, nice)
Signals (kill, trap)
Coprocesses and Pipes
Error Processing (ERRNO, $?)
Reserved Variables
Example Uses of Scripts
Prototyping
Daily Backup
File Selection
Installation Scripts
Add a User
Change all File Extensions
Prompt for Input
Accounting

Combining Shell Scripts and Compiled Languages
Advantages and Disadvantages of the Korn Shell
Function Libraries
Scheduling Execution
sleep
date
cron and crontab

Using UNIX Utilities to Talk to Other Users
who, mail, reply, talk, lpr
UNIX Utilities to Report System Status
df, ps, mt, du