shell

See shoulder.

A "command"-line "interpreter". The program that interactively gives you a prompt, accepts one or more lines of input, and executes the programs you mentioned, feeding each of them their proper arguments and input data. Shells can also execute scripts containing such commands. Under Unix, typical shells include the Bourne shell (/bin/sh), the C shell (/bin/csh), and the Korn shell (/bin/ksh). Perl is not strictly a shell because it's not interactive (although Perl programs can be interactive).

In a computer environment, an operating system command interpreter, i.e., a software utility that reads an input specifying an operation, and that may perform, direct, or control the specified operation. Note 1: For example, a shell may permit a user to switch among application programs without terminating any of them. Note 2: A shell may take its input from either a user terminal or from a file.