Minishell

Description

Minishell is a simple shell implementation in C. It is a project from the 42 school curriculum. The goal of this project is to create a simple shell that can handle basic commands, environment variables, and signal handling, it also has to be able to handle redirections and pipes. it also has a group of built-in commands that are implemented in C.

Installation

1. Clone the repository:

git clone https://github.com/abouabra/42-Minishell.git

2. Change the current working directory:

cd 42-Minishell

3. Compile the project:

make

4. Run the program:

./minishell

Features

Minishell provides the following features:

• Command execution: Minishell can execute commands entered by the user, including built-in commands and external programs.
• Quoting: Minishell supports single and double quotes to group arguments together.
• Built-in commands: Minishell supports built-in commands such as cd, echo, pwd, export, unset, env, and exit.
• Environment variables: Minishell can manage environment variables it including displaying using the $ symbol, exporting, and unsetting variables.
• Input/output redirection: Minishell supports input/output redirection using <, >, and >> symbols.
• Pipes: Minishell supports piping multiple commands together using the | symbol.
• Signal handling: Minishell handles signals such as Ctrl+C (SIGINT) and Ctrl+\ (SIGQUIT) gracefully.
• Error handling: Minishell provides informative error messages when commands fail to execute.
• Command history: Minishell supports command history using the up and down arrow keys.
• support for wildcard expansion using the * symbol.
• && and || operators for conditional execution of commands.

Usage

Once you have compiled the minishell program and run it, you can start using it as follows:

1. Enter commands at the prompt and press Enter to execute them. For example:

$ ls -l

2. Use built-in commands such as cd, echo, exit, and env as needed. For example:

$ cd <directory>

3. Use input/output redirection and pipes to perform more complex operations. For example:

$ ls -l > output.txt
$ cat input.txt | grep "pattern"

4. use the * wildcard to match any character in a file name. For example:

$ ls *.c

5. use the && and || operators for conditional execution of commands. For example:

$ ls -l && echo "ls succeeded" || echo "ls failed"

6. To exit Minishell, use the exit command:

$ exit

Final Note

If you have any suggestions or improvements, feel free to open an issue or submit a pull request.