Is bash a programming language?
The answer to this question is yes.
Bash is a command language, it is freeware and is a replacement for Bourne shell. It is a part of the Linux Operating System.
A shell is a script that is used to write commands. These commands are written at the command line to make a call to them. A shell is a script that is much like a program written in a C language. A shell script expands all the wildcards to arrange and list file names. Variables in the shell are capable of holding lists and undergo a split into their respective constituent parts.
The first Unix shell was the Bourne shell. Bourne’s shell capability was limited. Bourne shell was used to execute commands of other useful tools. Bourne shell consists of variables, iterative statements such as loops, and other conditional execution statements. Later with further exploration C shell named as csh included features such as command history, arithmetic operations, etc, these features and many others made csh a command-line interpreter.
For the GNU project, a new shell was developed which was called bash. Bash is an open-source and free shell. Bash is developed as a POSIX shell and includes other tools.
There exist different versions of Bash, such as bash2.05, bash-3, and bash-4.0.
Bash shell output can be obtained using echo command and printf commands. To take input from the user Bash has an inbuilt command known as read command. Output obtained can also be stored and saved in a particular file using the pipeline command. The pipeline command redirects the output to the desired location and can work as input to other commands to obtain the desired output. It is often required to read input from the desired location without any intervention of other commands or programs, this is possible with the help of the pipeline command, the pipeline command is capable of reading from the desired location and forward the input to the required command.
Bash also supports iterations. Iteration is done to execute a particular set of instructions repeatedly to obtain the desired output. Iteration in Bash is done using loop statements such as until, while, and for. The decision of executing a particular set of instructions is done when a condition is satisfied. This decision is done using decision statements. Bash supports the if statement to make a decision to execute a particular set of instructions. The decision is taken on the basis of a particular condition, this condition is build using operators such as && and ||.
The bash shell also parses the command line and expands it as required. Command-line parsing is done to split words and expand parameters. Bash also supports variables and parameters. The Bash shell supports different types of variables such as scalar variables and non-scalar variables. Bash also supports associative arrays and has the capability to search and replace entities.
Bash can also be used to design functions and these functions can be used to define routines. Bash also supports string manipulation. Bash has different string manipulation functions used to dice and splice strings.
Bash has the capability of working on files. To work on files Bash has commands that operate on files.
When commands are written in sequential order and executed to obtain the desired output then it is treated as a program. These programs can contain errors. To remove these errors Bash has the capability of executing the script step-by-step. Bug in each step is localized and removed.
Because of these features Bash is considered a programming language.
So the answer to the question Is bash a programming language? is Yes.
