shell

Shell

A minimal command-line shell-like emulator written in C using the ncurses library. It allows basic command execution and navigation with a user-friendly interactive interface.

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Features

• Text-based UI with ncurses
• Real-time input editing with arrow keys
• Command history (navigable with ↑ and ↓)
• Cursor movement within the command (← and →)
• Basic backspace/delete functionality
• Execution of system commands via execvp
• Captures and displays command output (stdout and stderr)
• Ctrl+Q to quit

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How to Compile

chmod +x build.sh
./build.sh

Make sure ncurses is installed on your system (e.g., sudo apt install libncurses5-dev on Debian/Ubuntu).

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Usage

./shell

You’ll see a > prompt where you can type Linux shell commands, like:

> ls -l
> echo Hello World
> pwd

Use:

• ↑ / ↓ to browse command history
• ← / → to move the cursor within the current command
• Backspace to delete characters
• Enter to execute
• Ctrl+Q to exit

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Notes

• Each command is executed in a child process via fork and execvp.
• Output is captured using a pipe and printed line-by-line using ncurses.
• Commands are stored and replayed in a dynamic array for history navigation.

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Limitations

• Scrolling is not supported: If output exceeds the terminal height, it will be clipped.
• Not all shell features are supported: Advanced features like pipes (|), I/O redirection (>, <), wildcards (*), etc., are not parsed or handled explicitly.
• No command auto-completion
• No support for multi-line commands or signals like Ctrl+C

This is a simplified educational prototype of a terminal—not a full shell.