What is a shell? Explain its importance. A shell is a What is a filter? Explain any five filters in UNIX system.

ters in UNIX system. Write a shell script to check whether given year is a leap
program which is run every time a user log in and is known as a
command interpreter. All the commands entered are run by the
shell. The prompt that appears when a user logs in is a shell and
waits for the user to enter a command. When a command is
entered, the shell scans the command live for metacharacters,
i.e. characters that have a special meaning to the shell. After
processing the metacharacters, the shell sends the command
line to the kernel for execution. The shell then displays the
prompt for the next command. This interpretive cycle continues
for the next command. That’s why shell is so important.
What is a process? Explain the mechanism of process
creation in UNIX system.
A process is born when a program starts execution and exists as
long as the program is running. After execution the process is
said to die. The name of the process is usually the name of the
program being executed.The creation of a process is in three
phases and uses three system calls known as fork, exec and
wait. ‘fork’ is a system call that creates a new process from an
existing process. The new process is called the child process,
and the existing process is called the parent. The attributes of
the parent and child are an identical image except for
parameters like Parent-ID. The child gets a new Parent-ID and
the process is forked. This is the mechanism used to multiply
process in the system. The child process overwrites the image
with a copy of program that is to be executed by using the
‘exec’ system call. No additional processes are created and the
existing program is replaced with a new program. The Parent-ID
of this process is the same as that of the child process which
was forked.The ‘wait’ system call is executed by the parent
process to wait for the child process to get completed. The exit
status of the child process is picked up by the parent process.
Ans. Filters are UNIX commands which are used for extracting
related information from a given file.Five mainly used filters in
UNIX are –
Paginating Files, ‘pr’ :- This command, i.e. ‘pr’, prepares a file
for printing by adding suitable headers, footers and formatted
text. This command has to be used with a file name as an
argument –$ pr emp.lst
‘head’ :- This command, as the name implies, displays the top of
the file. When used without an option, it displays the first ten
lines of the file. When used with –n option, it displays the first
‘n’ number of lines. $ head emp.lst ,$ head –n 3 emp.lst
‘tail’ :- The tail command displays the end of the file(as opposite
to head command). Like head, it displays the last 10 lines when
used without arguments and with –n option, it displays the last
‘n’ number of lines. $ tail emp.lst, $ tail –n 4 emp.lst
‘cut’ :- The features of the ‘cut’ command will be illustrated with
specific reference to the file “shortlist”, which stores the first
five lines of ‘emp.lst’ file. We can extract both columns and
fields from this file with the ‘cut’ command. Columns are
specified with –c optionand fields with –f option.
Cut is powerful text manipulator often used in combination with
other commands or filters.Cut uses the tab as the default field
delimiter, but can also work with different delimiter. (A)‘grep’ :-
The ‘grep’ command in UNIX is used to search for a pattern in a
given file. It displays the selected pattern, the line numbers or
the file names where the pattern occurs. The syntax is :$ grep
options pattern filename(s) (p)‘grep’ searches for pattern in
one or more filenames. The first argument is the pattern and
ones remaining are filenames.
year or not.
The script will be as –echo “Enter the Year : ”read year
leap = `expr $year % 4` if test $leap –eq 0 then
echo “$year is a leap year.” Else echo “$year is not a leap
year” fi
Explain the different types of variables in shell.
There are three types of variables commonly used in Bourne
Shell scripts :
Environmental Variables : Sometimes called special shell
variables, keyword variables, predefined shell variables, or
standard shell variables, are used to tailor the operating
environment to suit your needs. Examples include PATH, TERM,
HOME and MAIL.
User-Defined Variables : These are variables that we can create
ourselves.
Positional Parameters : These are used by the shell to store the
values of command-line arguments.
What is the significance of write and talk command in
UNIX.
Ans. Write and talk are communication programs that allow
users to talk to each-other in a network.The “write” command
copies lines from one user’s terminal to that of another user.
The command is used by typing the following – $ write
username
where username is another logged in user. The recipient gets a
message from the sender along with the sender’s username. If
the recipient of the message now writes back, communication
will start between the two users and continues until an end-of-
file is read from the terminal or an interrupt is sent.

Explain the output of the ls –l command. The command ls –
l lists seven attributes of all the files in the working directory.
The top list gives the file mode, which consists of a string of 10
characters. The first column gives the file mode, which consists
of a string of 10 characters. The first character indicates the file
type. The nine characters after the file type are the file
permissions, which are displayed in three sets of three
characters each. The second column gives the number of
filenames or links associated with the file. The third column
gives the file ownership. The third column displays the owner of
the file. The fourth column shows the group ownership of each
file. At the time of user account creation, the system
administrator assigns the user to a group. The fifth column
displays the file size in bytes.
Explain the different types of files in UNIX.
There are four possible types of file in UNIX:Ordinary files:
These files cannot contain text, data, or program information.
An ordinary file cannot contain another file, or directory. An
ordinary file can be a text file or a binary file.Directory files:
Directories are containers that can hold files, and other
directories. A directory is actually implemented as a file that has
one line for each item contained within the directory.
Special files: These files represent input/output (i/o) devices,
like a tty (terminal), a disk drive, or a printer. Because UNIX
treats such devices as files, some of the commands used to
access ordinary files will also work with device files. This allows
for more efficient use of software.Links: A link is a pointer to
another file. Since a directory is a list of the names and i-
numbers of files, a directory entry can be a hard link, in which
the i-number points directly to another file.
. What is recursion? Which data structure is used for
recursion
Ans. Recursion is a process of defining a process/problem/an
object in times of itself.
The date structure used for Recursion is Stack data structure.
7. What are the merits and demerits of recursion
Ans. Merits of Recursion: - Mathematical functions such as
Fibonacci series generation can be easily implemented using
recursion as compared to iteration technique.
Demerits of Recursion: - Many programming languages do
not support recursion. Hence, recursive mathematical function
is implemented using iterative methods.Even though
mathematical functions can be easily implemented using
recursion. It is always at the cost of execution time and memory
space.
10. What is a binary tree? Write a note on its properties.
A binary tree is made up of nodes when each node consists of
three elements, left node, right node and a data element. The
root node is the binary tree.Note on properties of a binary
tree :- The data key in the left child node needs to be smaller
than or equal to the data key of its parent node. The data key in
the right child node needs to be greater than or equal to the
data key of its parent node.
11. Differentiate between static allocation and dynamic
allocation
Ans. Static Allocation :- Static allocation means that the
memory allocation for representing the binary tree using 1-D or
2-D arrays is made statically at compile time.Dynamic
Allocation :- Dynamic allocation means that the binary tree
using linked list is made dynamically at run time.

1. Hand simulate the sequential search algorithm on the 3. Hand simulate the insertion sort algorithm for the 8. Hand simulate the algorithm to find minimum and
data set given below and the search elements being 10, following data set maximum elements in a list of n elements
05, 76, 85, 200 10, 45, 80, 03, 39, 09, 55, 32, 43, 02, 07, 01, 10, 15 Algorithm : Max-Min
Data set: 10, 80, 03, 09, 55, 32, 100, 07, 05, 02, 12, 65, 63, 22, Algorithm : Insertion sort Input : p, q, the lower and upper limits of the dataset
92, 81, 48, 76 Input : n, Size of the input domain max, min, two variables to return the maximum and minimum
Ans. Algorithm : Sequential search Input : A, a[1….n], array of n elements values in the list
vector of n elemen Output : a[1….n] sorted Output : maximum and minimum values in the dataset
K, search element Method : Method : If (p= q) Then
Output : j – index of k for j=2 to n in steps of 1 do max=a(p) min=(q)
Method : i=1 While (i<n) item =a[j] Else If (p-q-1)Then
{If (A[n] =k){ i=j-1 If (p)>a(q) Then max= a(p) min=
write (“search is completed”) while ((i>=1) and a(q) else
write (“k is location of i”) (item<a[i]) do max= a(q) min= a(p)
exit (); } a [i+1] = a[1] If end Else
else i++ if end while i=i-1 m=(p+q)/2
end while end max-min(p,m,max1,min1)
write (“search unsuccessfully”); max-
Algorithm ends. a[i+1]= item min(m+1,q,max2,min2)
2. Hand simulate the binary search technique on the for end;Algorithm ends. max <-
dataset given in (16) for the same keys 4. Hand simulate the selection sort algorithm for the large(max1,max2)
Algorithm : Binary search dataset given in (18) min <-
Input : A, vector of n elements Ans. Algorithm : Selection sort small(min1.min2)
K, search element Input : n, Size of the input domain If end If end Algorithm ends.
Output : low – index of k a[1….n], array of n elements 9. Hand simulate the quicksort algorithm to sort a list of
Method : low=1, high Output : a[1….n] sorted data elements
While (low<=high-1) Method : Ans. Algorithm : QuickSort
{ Mid= (low+high)/2 for i=1 to n in steps of 1 do Input : p, q, the lower and upper limits of the listof
if (k<a[mid]) j=i elements A to be sorted
high=mid else low=mid if for k = i+1 to n in steps of Output : A,the sorted list
end } 1 do Method :
while end if (k=a [low]) if(a[k]<a[j]) If (p< q)
{ write (“search successful”) write (“k is at location low”) then j=k J=q+1;
exit ();}write (“search unsuccessfully”);if end; for end; PARTITION (p,j)
Algorithm ends. Interchange a[i] and QuickSort (P, j-1)
a[j] QuickSort (j+1, q)
For endAlgorithm ends. If endAlgorithm ends.