From Bash to Z Shell: Conquering the Command Line

Some areas are covered in other books, but this one goes into some little-seen side streets and alleyways to show you the shortcuts to more efficient use of the shell. …The material here is invaluable: you’re not going to get it from the manual pages! I strongly recommend it.
– Ernest J.

This is a totally neat idea for a book… the command line gets addictive quickly.
– Bill Ryan, Bill’s House O Insomnia

This comprehensive, hands-on guide focuses on two of the most popular and feature-rich shells, bash and zsh. From Bash to Z Shell: Conquering the Command Line is a book for all skill levels. Novices will receive an introduction to the features of shells and power users will get to explore the benefits of zsh–one of the most powerful, versatile shells ever written. Intermediate users will uncover hints, recipes, and ideas to enhance their skill sets.

The book covers shell programming, but is unique in its thorough coverage of using shells interactively–a powerful and time-saving alternative to windows and a mouse. This strong author team has written an immediately useful book, packed with examples and suggestions that users of Unix, Linux, Mac OS X and Microsoft Windows can readily apply.

Table of Contents

Chapter 1: Introduction to Shells
Chapter 2: Using Shell Features Together
Chapter 3: More Shell Features
Chapter 4: Entering and Editing the Command Line
Chapter 5: Starting the Shell
Chapter 6: More About Shell History
Chapter 7: Prompts
Chapter 8: Files and Directories
Chapter 9: Pattern Matching
Chapter 10: Completion
Chapter 11: Jobs and Processes
Chapter 12: Variables
Chapter 13: Scripting and Functions
Chapter 14: Writing Editor Commands
Chapter 15: Writing Completion Functions