Sams Teach Yourself Shell Programming in 24 Hours is a tutorial aimed at making the UNIX and Linux user more effective and productive users of the operating system. It does this by showing them how to take control of their systems by harnessing the power of the shell. The vast majority of users utilize either the Korn shell or some variation of the Bourne shell. This book will cover both of these. It will begin with a more generalized tutorial of shell programming and then move into the specifics of each of the shells. It covers everything from managing input/output, creating and utilizing variables, to customizing their shell.