Classic shell script languages

All modern operating systems support a command language of some kind, which is generally available through the shell. Their functionality varies from system to system. Some command languages might be powerful enough to be used as full-fledged script languages, while others support only the minimal syntax that is required to interact with the machine. In this chapter, we will cover the two most common examples: bash scripting for Unix and Linux and batch files for the Windows platform.

Windows batch scripting

The Windows batch scripting language was created mainly to facilitate certain administrative tasks and not to completely replace other full-fledged alternatives. While it supports certain programming concepts, such as functions and loops, some quite basic operations, such as string manipulations, might be less obvious to implement compared to many other programming languages. The code can be executed directly from the cmd.exe console interface...