Have you ever used the Command Prompt on Windows or the Terminal on a Mac? When you type a command like ls or cd and press Enter, there's a program running behind the scenes that understands what you typed and executes it. This program is called a "shell".
Our minishell project is a simplified version of a real shell. It's a command-line interface that allows us to type commands, run programs, and see the results, just like a regular shell, but built from scratch using C.
Our minishell project includes a number of features that mimic the behavior of a standard shell:
Command Execution: Run external programs and executables found in your system's PATH.
Pipes (|): Chain multiple commands together, where the output of one command becomes the input of the next.
Redirections (<, >, >>): Control where the input for a command comes from and where the output goes.
>: Redirects a command's standard output to a file, overwriting the file's content.
>>: Redirects a command's standard output to a file, appending to the file's content.
<: Redirects a command's standard input from a file.
Built-in Commands: Our shell comes with its own implementation of several essential commands.
Environment Variables: Manage and use environment variables with commands like echo $PATH and export.
We implemented our own versions of the following commands:
echo: Displays text on the standard output.
cd: Changes the current working directory.
pwd: Prints the current working directory.
export: Manages environment variables.
unset: Removes environment variables.
env: Prints the environment variables.
exit: Exits the minishell, with an optional exit status.
Clone the repo and run make, then launch the program ./minishell.