O-Shell

A lightweight, custom shell implementation written in Rust that provides basic Unix command-line functionality.

📖 Overview

O-Shell is a minimalist command-line shell built from scratch in Rust. It implements common Unix commands, providing a familiar shell experience while serving as an educational project to understand how shells work under the hood.

✨ Features

• Interactive Shell: Clean, colored prompt showing the current directory
• Built-in Commands: Essential Unix commands implemented in pure Rust
• Lightweight: Minimal dependencies (only libc)
• Cross-platform: Written in Rust for portability

🚀 Getting Started

Prerequisites

• Rust 1.56 or higher
• Cargo (comes with Rust)

Installation

1. Clone the repository:

git clone <your-repo-url>
cd 0-shell

2. Build the project:

cargo build --release

3. Run the shell:

cargo run

Or run the compiled binary directly:

./target/release/O-shell

📝 Supported Commands

Implemented Commands

Command	Description	Flags
echo	Display a line of text	-n (no trailing newline)
cd	Change directory	-
pwd	Print working directory	-
cat	Concatenate and display files	-
cp	Copy files	-
mv	Move/rename files	-
mkdir	Create directories	-
exit	Exit the shell	-

In Development

• ls - List directory contents (with -l, -a, and -F flags)
• rm - Remove files and directories (with -r flag)

💡 Usage Examples

# Print working directory
$ pwd
/home/user

# Change directory
$ cd /tmp

# Create a directory
$ mkdir test_dir

# Display text
$ echo "Hello, World!"
Hello, World!

# Copy a file
$ cp file1.txt file2.txt

# Display file contents
$ cat file.txt

# Move/rename a file
$ mv old_name.txt new_name.txt

# Exit the shell
$ exit

🛠️ Development

Project Structure

0-shell/
├── Cargo.toml          # Project configuration
├── src/
│   ├── main.rs         # Entry point and REPL
│   └── commands/       # Command implementations
│       ├── mod.rs
│       ├── echo.rs
│       ├── cd.rs
│       ├── ls.rs
│       ├── pwd.rs
│       ├── cat.rs
│       ├── cp.rs
│       ├── rm.rs
│       ├── mv.rs
│       └── mkdir.rs
└── task.md            # Development checklist

Building from Source

# Debug build
cargo build

# Release build (optimized)
cargo build --release

# Run tests (if any)
cargo test

🤝 Contributing

Contributions are welcome! Here are some ways you can contribute:

• Implement missing commands (ls, rm with flags)
• Add new commands
• Improve error handling
• Add tests
• Improve documentation

🙏 Acknowledgments

This project was created as a learning exercise to better understand:

• How shells work internally
• Systems programming in Rust
• Unix command implementations
• REPL (Read-Eval-Print Loop) design

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Note: This is an educational project and not intended to replace production shells like bash or zsh.

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