Minishell

Table of Contents

• Introduction
• Features
• Built-ins
• Installation
• Usage
• Examples
• Project Structure
• Contact

Introduction

minishell is a simple UNIX shell developed as part of the 42 School curriculum. It mimics the behavior of bash with a subset of its features, providing a command-line interface for interacting with the operating system.

Features

• Display a prompt when waiting for a new command.
• Working command history.
• Search and launch the right executable based on the PATH variable or using a relative or an absolute path.
• Support for single and double quotes, preventing the shell from interpreting metacharacters within quotes.
• Redirections:
  • < for input redirection.
  • > for output redirection.
  • << for heredoc.
  • >> for appending output redirection.
• Piping: Use | to connect the output of one command to the input of another.
• Environment variable handling, including:
  • $? for the last executed command's exit status.
  • $_ for the last argument of the previous command executed.
• Signal handling for ctrl-C, ctrl-D, and ctrl-\.
  • ctrl-C displays a new prompt on a new line.
  • ctrl-D exits the shell.
  • ctrl-\ does nothing.
• Implementation of the following built-in commands:
  • echo with -n option.
  • cd with relative or absolute paths.
  • pwd without options.
  • export without options.
  • unset without options.
  • env without options or arguments.
  • exit without options.

Built-ins

• echo [-n] [string ...]: Prints the string to the standard output.
• cd [path]: Changes the current directory to the specified path.
• pwd: Prints the current working directory.
• export [name[=value] ...]: Sets environment variables.
• unset [name ...]: Unsets environment variables.
• env: Prints the environment variables.
• exit: Exits the shell.

Installation

1. Clone the repository:

   git clone https://github.com/yourusername/minishell.git
   cd minishell
   

Usage

1. Build the project:

   make
   make clean
   

2. run it:

   ./minishell
   

• ctrl-D to exit.

Examples

minishell$ echo "Hello, World!"
Hello, World!
minishell$ pwd
/home/yourusername/minishell
minishell$ export MYVAR="Hello"
minishell$ echo $MYVAR
Hello
minishell$ ls | grep minishell
minishell
minishell$ cat < input.txt > output.txt
minishell$ echo $_
output.txt

Project Structure

minishell/
├── include/
│   ├── minishell.h
│   ├── banner.png
├── src/
│   ├── *.c
├── Libft/
│   ├── *.c
│   ├── *.h
├── Makefile
├── README.md

Contact Information

• Email: khalilsohail24@gmail.com
• Discord: khalil_sohail
• LinkedIn: LinkedIn Profile