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Minishell

Description

Minishell is a simple, custom shell written in C, designed to emulate the functionality of the bash shell. The project involves handling various processes, file descriptors, and command-line inputs, giving me an opportunity to delve into key concepts related to system programming.

This shell includes support for a command-line interface, pipes, redirections, environment variable handling, and a few built-in commands.

Features

  • Displays a command prompt waiting for user input.
  • Handles both relative and absolute paths for commands.
  • Command history is maintained for easier navigation.
  • Supports pipes (|) for passing the output of one command as input to another.
  • Redirections:
    • < for input redirection.
    • > for output redirection.
    • << reads input until a delimiter is found (here-doc).
    • >> appends output to an existing file.
  • Handles environment variables ($) and expands them accordingly.
  • Recognizes and expands $? to the exit status of the most recent command.
  • Supports signal handling for ctrl-C, ctrl-D, and ctrl-\, behaving similarly to bash.
  • Built-in commands:
    • echo (with -n option)
    • cd (with relative or absolute paths)
    • pwd
    • export
    • unset
    • env
    • exit

Bonus Features

  • Logical operators && and || with support for prioritizing execution using parentheses.
  • Wildcard * support for pattern matching in the current directory.

Installation

  1. Clone the repository: 
    git clone git@github.com:Rui-Pedro-Pires/Minishell.git
  2. Navigate to the project directory: 
    cd Minishell
  3. Compile the project using the provided Makefile: 
    make

Usage

To start the shell:

./minishell

Once inside the shell, you can execute commands just like in a regular bash terminal.

Example commands:

echo "Hello, World!"
ls -la | grep minishell
cat < input.txt > output.txt
export PATH=/usr/local/bin

Requirements

  • C programming language.
  • The readline library for command history.

External Functions Used

The shell makes use of the following external functions:

  • readline, rl_clear_history, rl_on_new_line, rl_replace_line, rl_redisplay, add_history
  • Standard system functions like printf, malloc, free, write, fork, wait, execve, dup, pipe, and more.