About Bash / Shell Cheatsheet

Navigation, text processing, pipes, processes, scripting basics. Part of the DevTools Surf developer suite. Browse more tools in the Cheatsheets collection.

Use Cases

• Looking up loop syntax when writing deployment scripts
• Referencing text processing commands for log file analysis
• Finding process management commands during server troubleshooting
• Reviewing file permission commands during security hardening

Tips

• Check the pipes section for combining commands effectively
• Review text processing commands like grep, sed, and awk
• Use the scripting section for conditional and loop syntax

Fun Facts

• Bash (Bourne Again SHell) was written by Brian Fox for the GNU Project in 1989 as a free replacement for the Bourne shell (sh) from 1979.
• The pipe operator (|) was invented by Douglas McIlroy at Bell Labs in 1973 and is considered one of Unix's most important innovations.
• Bash is the default shell on most Linux distributions and was macOS's default until Catalina (2019), when Apple switched to zsh due to licensing concerns.

FAQ

Does it cover zsh and fish too?

Core shell features work the same (pipes, redirects, globbing). Zsh and fish have their own extensions — shell-specific syntax isn't covered here, but the portable basics are.

Is it safe to copy commands from the cheatsheet?

Commands shown are common and destructive ones (`rm -rf`, `:(){ :|:& };:`) are called out with warnings. Always understand what a command does before running it.

What about zsh/oh-my-zsh aliases?

Not covered — those are config layers, not shell features. The cheatsheet focuses on shell primitives that work in any POSIX-compatible shell.

Which version of Bash does it target?

Bash 4.x+ features (associative arrays, mapfile). For Bash 3 (default macOS), the cheatsheet notes compatibility. Use brew install bash on Mac for a modern version.