Arnold Robbins, an Atlanta native, is a professional programmer and technical author. He has worked with Unix systems since 1980, when he was introduced to a PDP-11 running a version of Sixth Edition Unix. He has been a heavy AWK user since 1987, when he became involved with gawk, the GNU project's version of AWK. As a member of the POSIX 1003.2 balloting group, he helped shape the POSIX standard for AWK. He is currently the maintainer of gawk and its documentation. He is also coauthor of the sixth edition of O'Reilly's Learning the vi Editor. Since late 1997, he and his family have been living happily in Israel.

Dedication;
Preface;
Korn Shell Versions;
Summary of Korn Shell Features;
Intended Audience;
Code Examples;
Chapter Summary;
Conventions Used in This Handbook;
About the Second Edition;
We'd Like to Hear From You;
Acknowledgments;
Acknowledgments from the First Edition;
Chapter 1: Korn Shell Basics;
1.1 What Is a Shell?;
1.2 Scope of This Book;
1.3 History of Unix Shells;
1.4 Getting the 1993 Korn Shell;
1.5 Interactive Shell Use;
1.6 Files;
1.7 Input and Output;
1.8 Background Jobs;
1.9 Special Characters and Quoting;
Chapter 2: Command-Line Editing;
2.1 Enabling Command-Line Editing;
2.2 The History File;
2.3 Emacs Editing Mode;
2.4 Vi Editing Mode;
2.5 The hist Command;
2.6 Finger Habits;
Chapter 3: Customizing Your Environment;
3.1 The .profile File;
3.2 Aliases;
3.3 Options;
3.4 Shell Variables;
3.5 Customization and Subprocesses;
3.6 Customization Hints;
Chapter 4: Basic Shell Programming;
4.1 Shell Scripts and Functions;
4.2 Shell Variables;
4.3 Compound Variables;
4.4 Indirect Variable References (namerefs);
4.5 String Operators;
4.6 Command Substitution;
4.7 Advanced Examples: pushd and popd;
Chapter 5: Flow Control;
5.1 if/else;
5.2 for;
5.3 case;
5.4 select;
5.5 while and until;
Chapter 6: Command-Line Options and Typed Variables;
6.1 Command-Line Options;
6.2 Numeric Variables and Arithmetic;
6.3 Arithmetic for;
6.4 Arrays;
6.5 typeset;
Chapter 7: Input/Output and Command-Line Processing;
7.1 I/O Redirectors;
7.2 String I/O;
7.3 Command-Line Processing;
Chapter 8: Process Handling;
8.1 Process IDs and Job Numbers;
8.2 Job Control;
8.3 Signals;
8.4 trap;
8.5 Coroutines;
8.6 Shell Subprocesses and Subshells;
Chapter 9: Debugging Shell Programs;
9.1 Basic Debugging Aids;
9.2 A Korn Shell Debugger;
Chapter 10: Korn Shell Administration;
10.1 Installing the Korn Shell as the Standard Shell;
10.2 Environment Customization;
10.3 Customizing the Editing Modes;
10.4 System Security Features;
Related Shells;
The Bourne Shell;
The 1988 Korn Shell;
The IEEE 1003.2 POSIX Shell Standard;
dtksh;
tksh;
pdksh;
bash;
zsh;
Workalikes on PC Platforms;
Reference Information;
Invocation Options;
Built-in Commands and Keywords;
Predefined Aliases;
Built-in Shell Variables;
Test Operators;
Options;
Typeset Options;
Arithmetic;
Emacs Mode Commands;
vi Control Mode Commands;
Using getopts;
Building ksh from Source Code;
Korn Shell Web Sites;
What You Can Download;
Building ksh;
AT&T ast Source Code License Agreement;
Colophon;