Pro Bash Programming: Scripting the Linux Shell (Expert's Voice in Linux)

My boss at work handed me a 1200 page book that they offered on BASH training and it was so bloated that I couldn't make it past the first chapter without falling asleep, and half way through I had forgotten what I learned in the first part. And I tried looking on the web for instruction but everyone on the web seems to just give you a quick rundown of the most basic BASH stuff, which is great once you know enough to do some damage, but as a beginner I couldn't get a grasp on why BASH acts the way it does and how to use that to my advantage.Until I read this book. Once I had this and was even half way through I got a clear understanding of how to utilize BASH and a lot of it's more powerful features. It's informative, but not bloated. It's basic and it's advanced in a way that is not confusing or intimidating. And the examples are practical and flow nicely from what you need to get started to what you need to iterate over a config file and read in params. And it even teaches you a bunch of useful BASH commands, most that I was aware of after working in BASH for 4 years, some I had never heard of, and even better I learned new ways to utilize old favorites. And to boot this book does have tasks that are relevant at the end of each chapter which is usually where I get the most value from reading something.I guess my only semi-complaint about the book was that sometimes the author would use code that he hadn't used before or commands he didn't explain to make an example. He named things very clearly so it was easy to tell what was going on, but it was slightly annoying when I had to read ahead or go on the internet the 5 or so times it happened. Otherwise, I couldn't really figure out a command or technique that was being used.Overall, pretty great. Would and have recommended this book to co-workers and friends.

Full disclosure: I was the technical reviewer for this book, and I admit my opinion may be biased. However, I was just technical mercenary hired by the publisher so there is no financial benefit to me if the book does well or not.Is author Chris F. A. Johnson pushing an agenda? You bet he is and that is a good thing. His agenda isn't hidden; he succinctly states it in the introduction:"While most shell programs do call external utilities, a lot of programming can be done entirely in the shell. Many scripts call just one or two utilities for information that is used later in the script. Some scripts are little more than wrappers for other commands such as awk, grep, or sed. This book is about programming in the shell itself. There's a sprinkling of the second type, where the script gets information (such as the current date and time) and then processes it. The third type gets barely more than a cursory nod."Resist the urge to call awk, grep, sed, perl or another Linux tool first; this book teaches the Bash shell's prgramming capabilities. Why call an external program when the shell can do the work for you?Should this be your first Bash programming book? Not if you require lots of syntactic hand holding. But if a motivated and clever beginner masters the first 10 chapters of this book, that beginner is on their way to becoming an expert. You will learn how to create functions, deal with files, parse strings, etc - correctly!There might also be something here for the expert. I've been creating *nix shell scripts for a long time, and I admit to being set in my programming ways. After reviewing this book, I changed the way I now parse and manipulate strings.

I am a long-time user of Linux, and so of Bash. I own several books on Bash programming, but I have always had trouble with Bash syntax, and I was looking forward to a book that treated Bash as a programming language, which is what the blurb promised. Sorry, this is NOT an explanation of Bash as a programming language.The first thing I noticed about the book is that it is physically hard to read - small, hard to read type on large pages. This may not bother other readers with younger eyes.The second thing I noticed was that the book does not talk about the syntax of Bash statements. My biggest problem writing Bash scripts is getting the spaces where they belong. A book that presents Bash as a language should certainly explain the basic syntax of statements, including where the spaces go and don't go - that's key to syntax, isn't it? Sorry, not here.So what's left? A book, not terribly well written, which talks about Bash programming techniques. Fine, but there are good books already out there. I would suggest "Classic Shell Scripting" from O'Reilly. It's long, but it covers not only Bash itself, but command line programs like awk which can be used inline. I find it easy to read, both physically and stylistically. I have also found "Linux Shell Scripting with Bash" from Developer's Library to be helpful.

This book taught me bash better than any other guide I've ever encountered (including everything online) and single-handedly gave me what I needed to complete a commercial project: a complete website deployment app and a fully automatic SQL change management synchronizer.

The book is in great shape, arrived ahead of schedule and has been a blessing at work. I sound like I know what I am talking about now!

I bought this for my husband and his opinion is that the book contains helpful information that could be better organized and that the author is 'pushing an agenda' so he would give the book three stars.

I would give this 6 stars if it were an option! Loved it!

Did not like it. Seems to leave it to the reader to find out important details on how to get your scripts working. I'm currently reading the O'Reily BASH cook book, and that is more useful. I plan on going back to the Pro Bash Programing book after reading the O'Reily book.

This is a really useful well written book - I have it in hardback. Unfortunately the Kindle edition which I just bought is almost unusable. All the coding examples are presented as tiny images, clicking on the image enlarges it but the quality is dreadful and you can then not see the explanatory text. Why do publishers not look at the quality of what they produce before selling it?

Bit hard to get into, very in depth right from the start, it uses pure bash, you may want to try something easier if you're just starting out with Bash / Shell Scripting.

Short concise examples that are easy to understand, but probably not for more experienced bash users. I am a beginner and this book suited me down to the ground currently working in IT sector using bash for the first time.

It's not big in size, so it is very handy, and you can always carry it with you. very useful. fantastic for impatient people. loved it

Good Book,As the title states, it is Pro. Great book