GNU Autoconf, Automake, and Libtool

7.2. A Simple Shell Builders Library

An application that most developers try their hand at sooner or later is a Unix shell. There is a lot of functionality common to all traditional command-line shells, which I thought I would push into a portable library to get you over the first hurdle when that moment is upon you. Before elaborating on any of this, I need to name the project. I have called it Sic, from the Latin "so it is"; because like all good project names, it is somewhat pretentious and it lends itself to the recursive acronym "Sic is cumulative."

The gory detail of the minutia of the source is beyond the scope of this book. To convey a feel for the need for Sic, however, some of the goals that influenced the design follow:

• Sic must be ...