And because there are always multiple
ways to do anything in Linux, you can also type env to get a succinct list of the current environment
variables and their values.
Metacharacters??”These are characters that have special meaning to the shell. They can
be used to direct the output of a command to a file (>), pipe the output to another command
(|), and run a command in the background (&), to name a few. Metacharacters are
discussed later in this chapter.
To save you some typing, there are shell features that store commands you want to reuse, recall
previous commands, and edit commands. You can create aliases that enable you to type a short
command to run a longer one. The shell stores previously entered commands in a history list,
which you can display and from which you can recall commands. You??™ll see how this works a little
later in the chapter.
TIP
NOTE
45
Running Commands from the Shell 2
Unless you specifically change to another shell, the bash shell is the one you use with most Linux
systems. The bash shell contains most of the powerful features available in other shells. Although
the description in this chapter steps you through many bash shell features, you can learn more
about the bash shell by typing man bash. The sidebar ???Getting Help Using the Shell??? shows you a
few other ways to learn about using the shell.
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