Preface

Contents:
Audience
Scope of This Book
Conventions
Acknowledgments
We'd Like to Hear From You

It may be a cliche, but it's true: the second edition of UNIX in a Nutshell (for System V) really is "bigger and better." Besides having a whole new appearance, the book has been revised for SVR4 and Solaris 2.0. Major additions include:

New SVR4 commands and options.
Selected BSD-derived commands from the compatibility packages.
Additional features specifically from Solaris 2.0.
Coverage of the Korn shell.
Sections on GNU Emacs and RCS (which aren't in standard SVR4).
An index to the commands described in this book.
Useful examples throughout the book.

Audience

This quick reference should be of interest to UNIX users and UNIX programmers, as well as to anyone (such as a system administrator) who might offer direct support to users and programmers. The presentation is geared mainly toward people who are familiar with the UNIX system - that is, you know what you want to do, and you even have some idea how to do it. You just need a reminder about the details. For example, if you want to remove the third field from a database, you might think, " I know I can use the cut command, but what are the options? " In many cases, specific examples are provided to show how a command is used.

This quick reference (or "quick ref") might also help people who are familiar with some aspects of UNIX but not with others. Many sections include an overview of the particular topic. While this isn't meant to be comprehensive, it's usually sufficient to get you started in unfamiliar territory.

And some of you may be coming from a UNIX system that runs the BSD or SunOS 4.1 version. To help with such a transition, SVR4 and Solaris 2.0 include a group of "compatibility" commands, many of which are presented in this guide.

Finally, if you're new to the UNIX operating system, and you're feeling bold, you might appreciate this book as a quick tour of what UNIX has to offer. The "Beginner's Guide" in Section 1 can point you to the most useful commands, and you'll find brief examples of how to use them, but take note: this book should not be used in place of a good beginner's tutorial on UNIX. This quick ref should be a supplement , not a substitute.