Types of Shell

UNIX system command is a program that Performs a desired function. UNIX command programs are either simple Utilities that perform simple operations or Complex interactive programs.

The shell program interprets the commands we type.
Shell prompts
$ - Bourne shell
% - C shell
# - Super User

There are many shells (interpreters) available on UNIX. There are 3 widely used shells namely:

Bourne shell (sh), C Shell (csh) and Korn Shell or K-Shell (ksh)

Bash shell is a super set of all the shells. Each and every Unix flavour consists of above three shells.

Features Bourne Shell (sh) Korn shell (ksh) C shell (csh) Bash Shell (bash)
AliasNo Yes Yes Yes
History (doskey like dos)No Yes Yes Yes
profile.profile .profile .login .bash_profile
Logout - .logout .logout .bash_logout
History file - .sh_history .history .bash_history
Variable declaration a=10 a=10 a 10 a=10