UNIX® Shells by Example Fourth Edition

Chapter 13. The Interactive Bash Shell

Introduction

With an interactive shell, the standard input, output, and error are tied to a terminal. When using the Bourne Again shell (Bash) interactively, you type UNIX/Linux commands at the bash prompt and wait for a response. Bash provides you with a large assortment of built-in commands and command-line shortcuts, such as history, aliases, file and command completion, command-line editing, and many more. Some of the features were present in the standard UNIX Bourne shell and Korn shell, but the GNU project has expanded the shell to include a number of new features as well adding POSIX compliancy. With ...