Minishell

Minishell is a custom Unix-like command-line shell written in C as part of the 42 School curriculum.
It aims to mimic core behaviors of Bash by handling commands, built-ins, environment variables, redirections, pipes, and signals using low-level POSIX system calls.

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🐚 Overview

A shell is a command interpreter that reads user input, parses it, and executes system commands and built-ins.
This project deepens your understanding of:

• Process creation and management with fork, execve, waitpid, etc. :contentReference
• Input parsing and syntax handling
• File descriptor redirection and pipes (|, <, >, >>, <<) :contentReference
• Signal handling (e.g., Ctrl+C, Ctrl+D, Ctrl+\\) :contentReference
• Environment variable expansion ($HOME, $?, etc.) :contentReference

Minishell respects the 42 coding standards (Norminette) and is fully implemented in C.

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🧰 Features

✓ Mandatory Features

• Prompt display and user input loop
• Execution of system commands found in $PATH
• Built-in commands:
  • echo
  • cd
  • pwd
  • export
  • unset
  • env
  • exit
• Environment variable expansion
• Redirections: >, >>, <, << (here-document)
• Pipes (|)
• Signal handling for typical interactive shell behavior

✨ Optional / Bonus (if implemented)

(Include here any bonus features you have — e.g., wildcard expansion, logical operators &&/||, enhanced line editing, etc.)

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⚙️ Requirements

Minishell is written in C and relies on:

• POSIX-compatible system calls
• GNU Make
• A C compiler (gcc or compatible)

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🛠️ Build & Run

1. Clone the repository

   git clone https://github.com/mohos26/Minishell.git
   cd Minishell
   
   

2. Compile

   make

3. Run the shell

   ./minishell

   You should see your custom shell prompt. Now you can type commands!

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📌 Usage Examples

Inside the shell:

$ echo Hello World
Hello World
$ pwd
/home/user
$ ls -l | grep txt
$ export MYVAR=42
$ echo $MYVAR
42
$ exit

(Adjust examples based on features you’ve implemented.)

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🚀 How It Works (High-Level)

1. Input Reading: Read user input line.
2. Lexing & Parsing: Tokenize input and build command structures.
3. Execution: Fork processes and run external commands or built-ins.
4. Redirections/Pipes: Manage file descriptors for command chaining.
5. Cleanup: Free allocated memory and handle signals.

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🧩 Project Structure

Minishell/
├── Makefile
├── src/
├── includes/
├── utils/
├── header.h
├── parser.c
├── executor.c
└── ...

(Adjust to match your repository’s actual structure.)

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🧪 Testing & Debugging

You can add a test suite or use external testers like minishell_tester (if you have one) to validate behavior against Bash.

🙌 Acknowledgments

Thanks to the 42 School curriculum and community for the project specifications and inspiration.