Learning shell features [was Re: can't run /sbin commands]

Alex Zbyslaw xfb52 at dial.pipex.com
Fri Sep 16 04:05:04 PDT 2005


Dave Webster wrote:

>I'm a happy camper.  Thanks for your help.
>  
>
Glad it's working for you again.

>PS. Is there some good reference to explain shell variables and
>environment variables, how they're set and their lifetime.
>  
>
Well, there are the manual  pages for the shells (tcsh/csh (same thing 
on freebsd), sh, bash (see ports)), but really they can be quite cryptic 
and difficult to figure out if you don't know the basic answers already.

I'd personally say that if this is the kind of question you are asking 
that a good book is the answer.  I can't recommend anything specific 
since I don't have a single UNIX reference book.  However, the author of 
one FreeBSD book regularly posts to this mailing list so just look 
through the archives for that (called Complete FreeBSD or some such) and 
there are bound to be O'Reilly books that you'd find useful, maybe Unix 
Power Tools.  That certainly has csh stuff and I'm sure I found some csh 
stuff from it on-line one time, though, typically, I can't find it now.

Failing that, you could try google and see if you come across any good 
how-to's, guides etc.

Other's may have other suggestions.

--Alex



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