Using CSH & Tcsh (Nutshell Handbooks)

sed & awk (2nd Edition)

The C Programming Language (2nd Edition)

Learning the vi Editor (6th Edition)

The UNIX Programming Environment

Shell

Unix C Shell Field Guide

Format: Paperback
Author: Gail Anderson
ReleaseDate: April, 1986
Publisher: Prentice Hall
Rating:

The definitive guide to the C Shell
It was originally derived from the 6th Edition Unix /bin/sh, the predecessor of the Bourne shell. The C shell (csh) is a Unix shell developed by Bill Joy for the BSD Unix system. Its syntax is modeled after the C programming language. The C shell added many feature improvements over the Bourne shell, such as aliases and command history. Today, the C shell is not widely used because it has been superceded by other shells such as the Tenex C shell (tcsh), the Korn shell (ksh), and the GNU Bourne-Again shell (bash). The C shell's scripting capability came under criticism in the early-to-mid 1990s for its ambiguity, especially with respect to quoting and redirection.
An example of possibly unwelcome behavior of csh scripts is the following:
if ( ! -e foo ) echo bar > foo
It would appear to say "if file 'foo' does not exist, create it with contents 'bar'". But it will in fact create an empty file, as the line is parsed such that the output redirect is set up before the file existence is tested. However, if you are a big fan of the C Shell or legacy code has forced you to deal with it, this is the definitive guide to it, even if it is 20 years old. The book is organized as follows:
Chapters 1 and 2 introduce the shell. Chapter 1 discusses what it is, what it does, and how you use it. Chapter 2 gives a brief tour of the shell with a sample terminal session.
Chapters 3 through 6 present the C Shell as an interactive command language. Chapter 3 presents the C shell's basic command forms. Chapter 4 shows the C shell's power - its command shorthand. Chapter 5 shows how to juggle your commands using job control. Chapter 6 covers the history and alias mechanisms, which are the C shell's original claims to fame.
Chapters 7 and 8 present the shell as a programming language. Chapter 7 covers the basic language forms and Chapter 8 discusses more advanced techniques. Both chapters contain plenty of example scripts.
Chapter 9 shows how to customize the C shell to accommodate your terminal type, working habits, login/logout procedures, and custom commands.
Chapter 10 explains how the C shell works and how it interfaces to the UNIX system. Included are plenty of diagrams to illustrate just how the C shell executes commands.
Finally, chapter 11 is a collection of C shell scripts that illustrate a particular technique, perform an interesting task, or solve a problem. Most are actual scripts in use on production UNIX systems at the time this book was printed.
This book should be on the shelf of anyone who must work with the C shell on a regular basis.

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The C Shell equivalent of K&P
Best book
on the (t)c-shell. This is Kernighan and Pike, "UNIX Programming
Environment" written for the c-shell.

Be literate, Know your c shell (csh)
Some time it is more efficient to switch to or supplement with the C shell and save many borne shell steps to accomplish the same process. I used this book to learn more than just the fundamentals of C shell programming. The C shell environment is robust. What the C shell is not is intuitive. Therefore, you need this book for any serious scripting. This is also the basis of tcsh.