🐚 minishell

This shell replicates core functionalities of bash, such as parsing user input, handling pipes and redirections, launching executables, and implementing built-in commands — all without relying on system calls like system().
It’s a deep dive into process management, file descriptors, signal handling, and low-level command parsing.

⚙️ Compilation

To build the project, run:

make

This will generate the minishell executable

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🚀 How to Use

Launch minishell with:

./minishell

You’ll be presented with a custom prompt where you can enter commands like in a typical shell.

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✨ Features

• Command Execution:

  • Absolute paths: /bin/ls
  • Relative paths: ./my_program
  • Search in $PATH: ls, cat, etc.

• Arguments & Options
  e.g., ls -la, echo Hello world

• Quotes Handling
  Supports 'single' and "double" quotes (no multiline support)

• Command Separators
  Use ; to run multiple commands

• Redirections

  • Output: > (overwrite), >> (append)
  • Input: <

• Pipes
  Chain commands using |

• Environment Variable Expansion
  e.g., $HOME, $USER, $? (exit code of last command)

• Signal Handling

  • Ctrl-C: Interrupts current command
  • Ctrl-\: Sends SIGQUIT to child process
  • Ctrl-D: Sends EOF (exits the shell if input is empty)

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🔧 Built-in Commands

These commands are handled internally by the shell:

Command	Description
echo	Print arguments to stdout
cd	Change current directory
pwd	Print current directory
export	Set environment variables
unset	Unset environment vars
env	Display environment
exit	Exit the shell

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📦 Examples

minishell$ echo "Welcome to minishell!"
Welcome to minishell!

minishell$ cd /tmp ; pwd
/tmp

minishell$ ls | grep ".log" > logs.txt

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❗ Known Limitations

• No multiline support in quoted strings
• No wildcard/globbing expansion (*, ?)
• No command history or line editing (e.g., arrow keys)

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Feel free to clone and explore!

git clone https://github.com/cgermain78/minishell.git
cd minishell
make
./minishell

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