The exercises that follow test and extend your knowledge of scripting. Think of them as a challenge, as an entertaining way to take you further along the stony path of UNIX wizardry.
On a dingy side street in a run-down section of Hoboken, New Jersey, there sits a nondescript squat two-story brick building with a inscription incised on a marble plate in its wall: Bash Scripting Hall of Fame. Inside, among various dusty uninteresting exhibits is a corroding, cobweb-festooned brass plaque inscribed with a short, very short list of those few persons who have successfully mastered the material in the Advanced Bash Scripting Guide, as evidenced by their performance on the following Exercise sections. . . .