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Built-in Commands

Minishell includes several built-in commands that are executed directly within the shell process. This document describes their usage and behavior.

Standard Built-ins

cd [path]

Changes the current working directory of the shell.

  • If no path is provided, it defaults to the HOME directory.
  • Updates the PWD and OLDPWD environment variables.

echo [-n] [string...]

Prints the given strings followed by a newline.

  • -n: Suppresses the trailing newline.

env

Displays the current environment variables.

  • Lists all variables in the format NAME=VALUE.

exit [status]

Exits the shell with the specified status.

  • If no status is provided, it exits with the status of the last executed command.
  • Handles numeric and non-numeric arguments according to bash standards.

export [name[=value]]

Adds or updates environment variables.

  • If no arguments are provided, it lists all environment variables in alphabetical order, formatted for re-export.
  • Supports adding variables with or without values.

pwd

Prints the absolute path of the current working directory.

unset [name...]

Removes the specified environment variables.

Implementation Details

All built-ins are defined in the builtins/ directory. They are dispatched via the exec_builtins function in the execution module. This allows the shell to avoid the overhead of forking processes for these core commands.