Minishell

Welcome to Minishell! 🐚
This project is a minimalist shell implementation inspired by Bash, created as part of the École 42 curriculum. It is a fully functional shell that mimics the behavior of a Unix terminal, allowing users to execute commands, manage files, and interact with their environment efficiently.

Why Minishell?

Minishell is a deep dive into system programming, focusing on process management, inter-process communication, and command-line interfaces. This project is not just about building a shell—it’s about understanding how operating systems work at their core and gaining hands-on experience with essential concepts like:

• Forking and Processes
• File Descriptors and Redirections
• Signal Handling
• Environment Variables and Path Resolution

The project challenges you to think critically, solve complex problems, and write clean, efficient C code.

Features

Minishell replicates many features of a standard Unix shell, including:

• Command Execution:
  Execute external programs from absolute or relative paths, with support for searching $PATH.

• Built-in Commands:
  Implementations of shell built-ins like:

  • echo with options
  • cd for directory navigation
  • pwd to display the current directory
  • export and unset to manage environment variables
  • env to list environment variables
  • exit to quit the shell

• Pipes and Redirections:
  Supports:

  • Piping commands (|)
  • Input redirection (<)
  • Output redirection (>, >>)

• Environment Variable Expansion:
  Handles $VAR expansions to access environment variables dynamically.

• Signal Handling:
  Graceful response to:

  • Ctrl+C (Interrupt)
  • Ctrl+D (End-of-file)
  • Ctrl+\ (Quit)

• Command History:
  Utilize the GNU Readline library for command-line editing and history.

Getting Started

To run Minishell locally:

1. Clone the Repository:

   git clone --recurse-submodules https://github.com/ito-miyuki/minishell.git

2. Navigate to the Project Directory:

   cd minishell

3. Build the Project:

   make

4. Run Minishell:

    ./minishell
   

Prerequisites

Before building and running Minishell, make sure you have the following:

• C Compiler:
  A C compiler such as GCC or Clang with support for C99 or higher.

• GNU Readline Library:
  This library is required for command-line editing and history functionality. You can install it using your system’s package manager:

  • For Ubuntu/Debian:

    sudo apt-get install libreadline-dev

  • For macOS (using Homebrew):

    brew install readline

  • For Arch Linux:

    sudo pacman -S readline

Thank you for visiting the project! I hope you find Minishell as enjoyable to work on as it was to create. Happy coding! 🚀