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Dev Tools · 1h ago

Build a working shell in 30 lines of C and learn fork-exec-wait

By Meridian48 News Desk · Summarised from DEV Community ·

A shell can be built in about 30 lines of C using three system calls: fork, exec, and wait. The article walks through creating a read-eval-print loop that clones itself and replaces the clone with the target program. This teaches the fundamental OS pattern for launching any program.

Meridian48 take
While the code is minimal, real shells handle pipes, redirections, and job control—this is a great teaching tool but not production-ready.
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