Classic Shell Scripting - Arnold Robbins [254]
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[1] One summer, while working as a contract programmer, I spent my lunchtimes reading the manual for System III (yes, that long ago), from cover to cover. I don't know that I ever learned so much in so little time. ADR.
Programming with the Unix Mindset
We expect that this book has helped you learn to "think Unix" in a modern context. The first two books in this list are the original presentations of the Unix "toolbox" programming methodology. The third book looks at the broader programming facilities available under Unix. The fourth and fifth are about programming in general, and also very worthwhile. We note that any book written by Brian Kernighan deserves careful reading, usually several times.
Software Tools, Brian W. Kernighan and P. J. Plauger. Addison-Wesley, Reading, MA, U.S.A., 1976. ISBN 0-201-03669-X.
A wonderful book[2] that presents the design and code for programs equivalent to Unix's grep, sort, ed, and others. The programs use Ratfor (Rational Fortran), a preprocessor for Fortran with C-like control structures.
Software Tools in Pascal, Brian W. Kernighan and P. J. Plauger. Addison-Wesley, Reading, MA, U.S.A., 1981. ISBN 0-201-10342-7.
A translation of the previous book into Pascal. Still worth reading; Pascal provides many things that Fortran does not.
The Unix Programming Environment, Brian W. Kernighan and Rob Pike. Prentice-Hall, Englewood Cliffs, NJ, U.S.A., 1984. ISBN 0-13-937699-2 (hardcover), 0-13-937681-X (paperback).
This books focuses explicitly on Unix, using the tools in that environment. In particular, it adds important material on the shell, awk, and the use of lex and yacc. See http://cm.bell-labs.com/cm/cs/upe.
The Elements of Programming Style, Second Edition, Brian W. Kernighan and P. J. Plauger. McGraw-Hill, New York, NY, U.S.A., 1978. ISBN 0-07-034207-5.
Modeled after Strunk & White's famous The Elements of Style, this book describes good programming practices that can be used in any environment.
The Practice of Programming, Brian W. Kernighan and Rob Pike. Addison-Wesley Longman, Reading, MA, U.S.A., 1999. ISBN 0-201-61586-X.
Similar to the previous book, with a somewhat stronger technical focus. See http://cm.bell-labs.com/cm/cs/tpop.
The Art of UNIX Programming, Eric S. Raymond. Addison-Wesley, Reading, MA, U.S.A., 2003. ISBN 0-13-124085-4.
Programming Pearls, First Edition, Jon Louis Bentley. Addison-Wesley, Reading, MA, U.S.A., 1986. ISBN 0-201-10331-1.
Programming Pearls, Second Edition, Jon Louis Bentley. Addison-Wesley, Reading, MA, U.S.A., 2000. ISBN 0-201-65788-0. See http://www.cs.bell-labs.com/cm/cs/pearls/.
More Programming Pearls: Confessions of a Coder, Jon Louis Bentley. Addison-Wesley, Reading, MA, U.S.A., 1988. ISBN 0-201-11889-0.
Bentley's excellent books epitomize the Unix mindset, and are wonderful examples of little languages, algorithm design, and much more. These should be on every serious programmer's bookshelf.
Linux and the Unix Philosophy, Mike Gancarz. Digital Press, Bedford, MA, U.S.A., 2003. ISBN 1-55558-273-7.
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[2] One that changed my life forever. ADR.
Awk and Shell
The AWK Programming Language, Alfred V. Aho, Brian W. Kernighan, and Peter J. Weinberger. Addison-Wesley, Reading, MA, U.S.A., 1987. ISBN 0-201-07981-X.
The original definition for the awk programming language. Extremely worthwhile. See http://cm.bell-labs.com/cm/cs/awkbook.
Effective awk Programming, Third Edition, Arnold Robbins. O'Reilly, Sebastopol, CA, U.S.A., 2001. ISBN 0-596-00070-7.
A more tutorial treatment of awk that covers the POSIX standard for awk. It also serves as the user's guide for gawk.
The New KornShell Command and Programming Language, Morris I. Bolsky and David G. Korn. Prentice-Hall, Englewood Cliffs, NJ, U.S.A., 1995. ISBN 0-13-182700-6.
The definitive work on the Korn shell, by its author.