🐚 MiniShell - A Basic Linux Shell in C++

📜 About

• MiniShell is a simple Linux shell written in C++.
• It supports running basic commands, handling directory changes (cd), and keeps a simple command history.
• This project was built to deepen my understanding of system calls (fork(), execvp(), wait()) and Linux internals.

🚀 Features

• Run standard Linux commands : Supports external commands like ls, pwd, date, echo, etc. using execvp

• Prompt Display : Colored Prompt using ANSI escape codes

• cd command : to change directories using chdir()

• Exit Command : exit terminates the shell loop

• History Command : Keeps a maximum of 50 commands, trimming the oldest

• Execute Commands from History : Supports !N to execute the N-th command in history

• Basic error handling : Prints user-friendly messages when fork() or execvp() fail

• Signal Handling : Gracefully handles Ctrl+C without exiting the shell

• Command Piping : Support for | for chaining commands

• Command Redirection : Support for > and `>>' for redirection

🔧 Technologies Used

• C++

• Linux System Programming (fork, execvp, wait, chdir)

• GCC Compiler

• Git for version control

🛠️ How to Build and Run

Clone the repository:

git clone https://github.com/qwerty-arun/MiniShell.git
cd MiniShell

Compile the project:

g++ main.cpp -o minishell

Run the shell:

./minishell

📸 Demo

📚 What I Learned

• How Linux creates and manages processes.

• How command execution actually works under the hood.

• Handling user input and system calls properly.

• Building real-world C++ projects.

🤔 Future Improvements

• Add support for piping (|) and redirection (>, <)

• Handle Command Chaining (&&, || and ;)

• Implement tab-autocomplete for commands

• alias command

• Job Control: implement fg, bg and jobs commands

• Support Environment Variables

• Supporting background execution using '&'

🧑‍💻 Author

Arun K R

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GitHub