The Unix Programming Environment

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Written by Brian W. Kernighan and Rob Pike, both of Bell Labs, it is an important and early book on the Unix operating system. Often considered "the bible", it is the most authoritative work on Unix. First published in 1984 by Prentice Hall.

The book starts off with an introduction to Unix for beginners. Next, it goes into the basics of the file system and shell. You learn topics ranging from the use of filters to how to use C for programming robust Unix applications. Along the way, you learn how to use grep, sed, make, and awk. The book closes with a tutorial on making a programming language parser with yacc and how to use troff and tbl to format documents and man pages. The appendices cover the ed editor and the abovementioned programming language, named hoc.

This is written during the K&R coding style, therefore expect nonstandard C programs.

ISBN 0-13-937681-X (paperback), 0-13-937699-2 (hardback).