Small, Sharp Software Tools

Chapter 6The Shell and Environment

The command-line interface is more than just a place to run commands. It’s an environment for managing everything from your operating system to the code you write.

When you open a new shell session, some behind-the-scenes processes configure an environment for you to use by reading through various configuration files, running some scripts, and setting some variables you can access. Most of this is customizable. You can store data in variables for easy reuse, create configuration files for your shell session that set everything up just the way you want every time you log in, change the information your prompt displays, and even create your own shortcuts and keybindings. You’ll do all of those things in this ...