Mini Linux Shell

Mini shell made in C for Linux using GNU Readline Library

Table of Contents

1. About The Project
   • Built With
2. Getting Started
   • Prerequisites
   • Installation
3. Usage
4. Contributing
5. License
6. Acknowledgments

About The Project

• Inspired by Cornell's CS 414's Shell assignment, this project aims to create a shell in C, much like Csh or Bash
• Implements various advanced programming techniques such as process creation and control, file descriptors, signals, I/O redirection and pipelines
• Takes in a list of commands separated by space or pipes and parses it into individual components such as commands, flags, I/O files, pipe and I/O operators
• Shell prompt displays the user's present working directory, user login info and their host machine name
• Final results can be neatly saved in a CSV format.
• Features 5 built-in commands: cd, history, jobs, kill and exit
• Caches user commands using GNU Readline/History library
• Allows users to create background jobs by using the '&' operator and display them with their process IDs using the 'jobs' command
• Background jobs can be killed using 'kill' command followed by the process ID of the job
• Dynamic analysis tools such as Valgrind was used to detect and subsequently fix memory leaks

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Built With

• 

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Getting Started

Prerequisites

• GNU Readline Library

You can install the GNU Readline library GNU Readline library using the following command

sudo apt-get install libreadline6 libreadline6-dev 

Installation

1. Automatically compile the project using make,

   make

2. Then run using the shell by using the following command,

   ./shell 

Using built-in commands

• Go to the specified directory:

  cd [path/to/directory]
  

• View jobs spawned by the current shell:

  jobs 
  

• Display the commands history list:

  history 
  

• Kill a background job:

  kill [process_id] 
  

• Exit the shell:

  exit 
  

Contributing

Contributions are what make the open source community such an amazing place to learn, inspire, and create. Any contributions you make are greatly appreciated.

If you have a suggestion that would make this better, please fork the repo and create a pull request. You can also simply open an issue with the tag "enhancement". Don't forget to give the project a star! Thanks again!

1. Fork the Project
2. Create your Feature Branch (git checkout -b feature/AmazingFeature)
3. Commit your Changes (git commit -m 'Add some AmazingFeature')
4. Push to the Branch (git push origin feature/AmazingFeature)
5. Open a Pull Request

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License

Distributed under the MIT License. See LICENSE.md for more information.

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Acknowledgments

• Cornell 2004 shell project template

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