[nycbug-talk] Shell Newbie

[Scott Robbins]

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On Wed, Apr 12, 2006 at 09:58:11AM -0400, Huy Ton That wrote:
> Hey all, I've always used the bash shell and wanted to get into some shell
> scripting.  Before I started, I curious to see if anyone had any feedback as
> far as other shells are out there and just get a feel for the general
> preference if any exists; speaking purely for flexibility.

Heh, no doubt you'll get a great many answers.  I would say, however, do
your best to use sh rather than bash, simply for portability.  On Linux,
most of the time, /bin/sh is a link to /bin/bash.  However, on the BSDs
and other Unix and Unix like systems, /bin/sh might be all you have.  

So, if you write a script with the top line of 

#!/bin/bash

You'd have to modify it for FreeBSD to #!/usr/local/bin/bash and on
NetBSD to #!/usr/pkg/bin/bash and the like.

Bash has a few features that sh lacks, such as the select loop, but,
especially when you're just beginning, you can probably do most of what
you want in sh.  

(I use zsh myself, but for scripts, I use sh.)




- -- 

Scott

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