| Qshell | |
| Developer: | IBM |
| Operating System: | IBM i |
| Platform: | IBM Power Systems |
| Language: | English |
| Genre: | Command shell |
| Website: | Qshell |
| Standard: | POSIX, X/Open |
Qshell is an optional command-line interpreter (shell) for the IBM i operating system. Qshell is based on POSIX and X/Open standards. It is a Bourne-like shell that also includes features of KornShell. The utilities (or commands) are external programs that provide additional functions. The development team of Qshell had to deal with platform-specific issues such as translating between ASCII and EBCDIC. The shell supports interactive mode as well as batch processing and can run shell scripts from Unix-like operating systems with few or no modifications.
The following is a list of commands that are supported by the Qshell command-line interpreter on IBM i 7.4.[1]
Qshell does not support the redirection operator or provide a command history. It also has no job control support as IBM i operating system does not have the concept of a foreground or background process group. The POSIX standard and built-in commands are therefore not available as well.[2]
According to IBM, QSHELL is a “Unix-like” interface built over IBM i. The commands issued by the user point to programs in a “Qshell” library. It began as a port from the ash shell, which was a Bourne-like shell created by Berkeley Software Design.[3]