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Build your own Shell

Learn about parsing shell commands, executing programs and more

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This challenge is free until 1 January 2025!

A shell is a command-line interface that executes commands and manages processes. In this challenge, you'll build your own POSIX compliant shell that's capable of interpreting shell commands, running external programs and builtin commands like cd, pwd, echo and more.

Along the way, you'll learn about shell command parsing, REPLs, builtin commands, and more.

Stages

Print a prompt
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Handle invalid commands
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REPL
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The exit builtin
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The echo builtin
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The type builtin: builtins
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The type builtin: executable files
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Run a program
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Navigation

The pwd builtin
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The cd builtin: Absolute paths
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The cd builtin: Relative paths
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The cd builtin: Home directory
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Quoting

Single quotes
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Double quotes
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Backslash outside quotes
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Backslash within single quotes
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Backslash within double quotes
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Executing a quoted executable
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