Unix Tools and Utilities

Course specifications

Course number: 49-702

Software version number: any reasonable implementation of Unix with the Korn shell.

Course length: 3 day(s)

Hardware/software required to run this course

Any POSIX compliant UNIX System V-based system.  See your reference manual for hardware and software considerations that apply to your specific Unix system.

Course description

Overview: This is a foundation course for programmers.  It provides an understanding of the Unix system and teaches the basic Unix facilities and commands for data manipulation and shell programming.

Prerequisites: Participants must have some experience of Unix, including the use of the vi editor and the simple filesystem.  Experience programming in a high-level language such as C is also useful.

Delivery method: Instructor-led, group-paced, classroom-delivery learning model with structured independent or partnered exercises following each lesson.

Benefits: Students will learn the tools and utilities that Unix provides for application and system development.

Target student: Systems and applications programmers who plan to use the Unix operating system.

Unix Tools and Utilities

Performance-based objectives

Lesson objectives help students become comfortable with the course, and also provide a means to evaluate learning. Upon successful completion of this course, students will be able to:
Use many of the Unix tools.

Appreciate the Unix tools philosophy, enabling them to create powerful user and programmer utilities.

Create, access, and manipulate data under Unix using important Unix tools.

Program the command interpreter, the Korn shell.

Describe the Unix project archiving system.

Unix Tools and Utilities

Course content

Lesson 1: The Korn Shell Command Interpreter
The Command Interpreters
Command-Line Editing
Shell Variables
Filters and Pipelines
Filename Generation and Metacharacters
Command Grouping and Sub-Shells
Aliases

Lesson 2: Everyday Unix Tools
Viewing File Contents
Text Manipulation
Traversing the File Hierarchy

Lesson 3: Shell Programming
Writing and Running Shell Scripts
Interpretation and Substitution
Command Substitution
Shell Variables and Variable Substitution
Shell Environment Variables
Arithmetic with Shell Variables
Positional Parameters
Shell Parameters
Blank Interpretation
Comments
Getting User Input - Read
Modifying the Command Line - Shift
The for Loop and if Statement
Exit Status or Return Code
The test Command
Break and Continue
The case Statement
Simple Conditionals
The set Command
Here Documents

Lesson 4: General Purpose Tools
sed
awk

Lesson 5: Software Development Tools
ar
sccs
make