Mini Unix Shell with Pipes and Redirection

Project roadmap

1. 01

   Build the read-eval loop and tokenizer

   ~1.5h

   Read a line of input and tokenize it into command and arguments respecting quoting.

2. 02

   Implement single-command execution

   ~2h

   Fork a child process, exec the command with execvp, and wait for it in the parent.

3. 03

   Add I/O redirection support

   ~2.5h

   Detect <, >, >> tokens and use dup2 to redirect the child's stdin/stdout to files before exec.

4. 04

   Implement multi-stage pipes

   ~3h

   Support chaining commands with | by creating pipes and connecting each stage's stdout to the next's stdin.

5. 05

   Add built-in commands

   ~1.5h

   Implement cd, exit, and pwd as built-ins handled directly in the parent process rather than forked.

6. 06

   Add basic job control feedback

   ~1.5h

   Print exit status of foreground commands and handle Ctrl-C gracefully without killing the shell.

Resources

• DocsC Language Reference