VTSH - A Very Tiny Shell

A simple C shell implementation that executes basic commands.

Features

• Interactive Command Line: Uses GNU Readline for a user-friendly prompt.
• Command History: Navigate through previous commands using arrow keys.
• Tab Completion: Autocompletes file paths and commands.
• Pipeline Support: Chain commands together with pipes (|).
• Background Jobs: Run commands in background using &.
• Job Control: Proper process group management and signal handling.
• External Commands: Executes any command from the system's PATH (e.g., ls, grep).
• Built-in Commands:
  • cd: Change the current directory.
  • help: Display a list of built-in commands.
  • exit: Terminate the shell.
• I/O Redirection:
  • >: Redirect output to a file (overwrite).
  • <: Read input from a file.

Project Structure

vtsh/
├── Makefile           # Build configuration
├── README.md          # README file
├── build/             # Compiled executable appears here
│   └── vtsh
└── src/
    ├── shell.c        # Main shell loop and initialization
    ├── shell.h        # Shell global state and functions
    ├── builtins.c     # Built-in command implementations
    ├── builtins.h     # Built-in command headers
    ├── job.c          # Job control and process management
    ├── job.h          # Job control data structures
    ├── tokenize.c     # Input parsing and tokenization
    └── tokenize.h     # Tokenization functions

Building and Running

1. Install Dependencies

   You need gcc and make to build the shell. You also need the GNU Readline library.

   # For Debian/Ubuntu
   sudo apt-get update
   sudo apt-get install build-essential libreadline-dev
   
   # For Fedora/RHEL
   sudo dnf groupinstall "Development Tools"
   sudo dnf install readline-devel
   
   # For Arch Linux
   sudo pacman -S base-devel readline

2. Clone and Build

   # Clone the repository
   git clone https://github.com/TeshanK/vtsh.git
   cd vtsh
   
   # Build the shell
   make

3. Run the Shell

   ./build/vtsh

4. Clean Up

   # Remove the build directory and executable
   make clean