A Bourne Shell Programming/Scripting Tutorial for learning about using the Unix shell. Learn Linux / Unix shell scripting by example along with the theory. We'll have you mastering Unix shell scripting in no time!
This tutorial is written to help people understand some of the basics of shell script programming, and hopefully to introduce some of the possibilities of simple but powerful programming available under the bourne shell. As such, it has been written as a basis for one-on-one or group tutorials and exercises, and as a reference for subsequent use.
Steve Bourne, wrote the Bourne shell which appeared in the Seventh Edition Bell Labs Research version of Unix. Many other shells have been written; this particular tutorial concentrates on the Bourne and the Bourne Again shells. Other shells include the Korn Shell (ksh), the C Shell (csh), and variations such as tcsh. This tutorial does not cover those shells. Maybe a future version will cover ksh; I do not intend to write a tutorial for csh, as csh programming is considered harmful.