If you're working in a Linux environment, chances are you've encountered environment variables—even if you didn’t realize it at the time. They quietly power much of what goes on behind the scenes in ...

Linux Journal, representing 25+ years of publication, is the original magazine of the global Open Source community.

You've heard of variables in PowerShell, right? How about reference variables? Maybe not. The reason is because a scripter can generally get by without them, but they do still have a purpose.

Shell scripting is one of those skills that are absolutely invaluable on especially UNIX and BSD-based systems like the BSDs, the two zillion Linux distributions as well as MacOS. Yet not every shell ...