₹0 for students · Certificate · Beginner

The Unix Shell

7 lessons: navigate, automate and script from the command line

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7 lessons · ~4 hours · 20-question final exam · pass mark 70%

About the course

What you’ll learn

The command line is where developers, data analysts and cloud engineers work fastest. Learn to move around the file system, create and manage files, combine commands with pipes, repeat work with loops, save it as scripts and find what you need with grep and find. Each lesson has a study guide, the full Software Carpentry episode with exercises, and a quiz. Pass every quiz and the final exam to earn a verifiable certificate.

BashCommand linePipes and filtersShell scriptinggrepfindAutomation

Part of the career tracks: Web Developer, Data Analyst, Computer Science Foundations, Cybersecurity and Connected Systems

How the certificate works

  1. Read each lesson’s study guide, then the full lesson and any notebooks or exercises.
  2. Pass every lesson quiz with 70% or more.
  3. Pass the final exam: 20 questions in 30 minutes.
  4. Get a certificate with a public verification link, and add it to LinkedIn.

Syllabus

7 lessons in 3 parts

Finding your way

1
Introducing the Shell
20 min · The shell runs programs from typed commands; Bash is the most common.
2
Navigating Files and Directories
40 min · The file system is a tree; / is the root and ~ is your home directory.

Working with files and data

3
Working with Files and Directories
40 min · mkdir creates directories (-p for nested); nano edits text; touch makes empty files.
4
Pipes and Filters
45 min · Filters: wc, sort (-n), head, tail, cut, uniq (-c), cat.

Automating work

5
Loops
40 min · for var in list; do commands; done repeats commands for each item.
6
Shell Scripts
40 min · A shell script saves commands in a file to run again: bash script.sh.
7
Finding Things
40 min · grep searches file contents: -w, -i, -n, -v, -r, -E.

Course content is derived from Software Carpentry's "The Unix Shell" lesson (https://swcarpentry.github.io/shell-novice/), Copyright (c) The Carpentries (https://carpentries.org/), licensed under CC BY 4.0. Vikosha wrote new study guides and quiz questions; changes were made. Certificates are issued by Vikosha and are not issued or endorsed by The Carpentries. Licence: CC BY 4.0, Copyright (c) The Carpentries. View the original curriculum