This project has been created as part of the 42 curriculum by lutsiara.

Minishell is a project that aims to create a simple, functional shell, similar to a mini version of Bash. It provides a platform to gain extensive knowledge about processes, file descriptors, and command-line parsing.

Key features include:

• Interactive command-line interface with history.
• Handling of absolute and relative paths.
• Built-in commands: echo, cd, pwd, export, unset, env, and exit.
• Pipelines (|) for chaining commands.
• Redirections (<, >, <<, >>).
• Environment variable expansion ($VAR, $?).
• Logical operators (&&, ||).
• Wildcard expansion (*).
• Signal handling (Ctrl-C, Ctrl-D, Ctrl-\).

Minishell is structured into several modular components to ensure clean separation of concerns and maintainability:

• Lexer (lexer.c): Tokenizes the input string into a list of meaningful tokens (words, operators, etc.).
• Expander (expander.c): Processes tokens to handle environment variable expansion and quote removal.
• Parser (parser.c): Converts the sequence of tokens into a linked list of t_command structures, which hold the command arguments, file descriptors for input/output, and logical operators.
• Executor (executor.c): The core engine that orchestrates command execution. It manages:
  • Built-in commands via direct execution.
  • External commands via path searching and execve.
  • Pipelines and redirections using fork, pipe, and dup2.
• Environment Management (environment.c): Maintains a linked list representing the shell's environment variables.
• Built-ins (src/builtins/): Individual modules for each mandatory shell built-in command.

To compile the project, use the provided Makefile:

make

To remove all compiled objects and binaries:

make fclean

To recompile:

make re

Once compiled, run the shell:

./minishell

• Bash Reference Manual
• Unix Processes & IPC Documentation