Need for Shell Built ins

Usually a command is executed by the shell by spawning a new process. Though this strategy is effective in dealing usual commands it may turn ineffective in dealing certain others, especially one that changes the behavior of the shell itself.Example for such a command is the cd command. As you know, cd is a command used to change the current working directory in a shell.


Consider that we decided to adopt the conventional method for implementing the cd command,i.e we will spawn a new process whenever the cd command is encountered. If you where to explore Linux System Call API, you will find that the only sys call available for changing the directory is the chdir(). The problem with the chdir() is that it can only change the current working directory of the current process. Thus if we are implementing cd as a separate process, it will have no effect on our main process-shell.That's the stage at which the shell built ins kicks in. Built ins are nothing but commands whose implementation is the task of the shell itself. So whenever a built in command is encountered , it is implemented by the bash itself rather than as a separate process. 


The below program is the source code for a minimal shell that implements cd as a built in

	#include<unistd.h>
	#include<string.h>
	#include<stdio.h>
	#include<stdlib.h>
	void main()
	{
	char path[]="/bin/%s",*arg=(char *)malloc(15*sizeof(char)),*cmd=(char *)malloc(15*sizeof(char)),*cmdarg=(char *)malloc(15*sizeof(char)),*cwd=(char *)malloc(70*sizeof(char));
	while(1){
	printf("paul@linux:~%s$ ",getcwd(cwd,70));
	cmdarg=gets(cmdarg);
	cmd=(char *)strtok(cmdarg," ");
	arg=(char *)strtok(NULL," ");
	if(strcmp("cd",cmd)==0){
	if(chdir(arg)==-1)
	perror("Error");
	}
	else if(strcmp("exit",cmdarg)==0) //Type exit to Exit ;)
	kill(getpid(),9);
	else{
	if(fork()==0){
	sprintf(path,"/bin/%s",cmd);
	if(execl(path,cmd,arg,(char *)NULL)==-1)
	perror("No such command in /bin");
	}
	else
	wait();
	}
	}
	}

view raw shell.c hosted with ❤ by GitHub

Note: The minimal shell given above accepts maximum of only one argument for any given command including switches. Also the commands supported are the ones only in /bin directory along with exit and cd