The Korn Shell Quick Reference Guide

The Korn shell is an interactive command and programming language that provides an interface to UNIX and other systems. As an interactive command language, it is responsible for reading and executing the commands that you enter at your terminal. As a programming language, its special commands allow you to write sophisticated programs. It also provides the ability to customize your working environment.

The Korn shell offers compatibility with the Bourne shell, while providing a more robust programming language and command interpreter. It also contains some features of the C shell. Some of the major features of the Korn shell are:

• Improved performance

• Bourne shell compatibility

• Command-line editing

• Command history

• Enhanced I/O facilities

• Added data types and attributes

• Integer arithmetic support

• Arrays

• Improved string manipulation facilities

• Job control

• Aliases and functions

• Enhanced directory navigation facilities

• Enhanced debugging features  

Definitions
Commands
Variable Assignments
Comments
Aliasing
Tilde Substitution
Command Substitution
Arithmetic Substitution
Process Substitution
Parameter Expansion
Field Splitting
File Name Generation
Quoting
Arithmetic Evaluation
Prompting
Conditional Expressions
Input/Output
Environment
Functions
Discipline Functions
Jobs
Signals
Execution
Command Re-entry
In-line Editing Options
Key Bindings
Emacs Editing Mode
Vi Editing Mode
Built-in Commands
Invocation