🦀 Rust Terminal — A Lightweight Custom Shell in Rust

A fully functional mini command-line shell written in Rust, featuring support for:
✅ Command execution
✅ Directory navigation (cd)
✅ Output redirection (>)
✅ Piping between commands (|)
✅ Built-in exit command to gracefully quit

This project showcases how Rust’s std::process, std::io, and system-level abstractions can be combined to create a minimal yet powerful terminal emulator.

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🚀 Features

🧭 1. Execute System Commands

Run any valid system command directly from the terminal.

> ls -l
> echo Hello, Rust!

📂 2. Change Directories

Implements a built-in cd command to change the current working directory.

> cd src
> cd ..

🔗 3. Command Piping (|)

Connect the output of one command to another — just like in real shells.

> ls | grep main
> cat Cargo.toml | grep edition

💾 4. Output Redirection (>)

Redirect command output to a file.

> echo Hello > output.txt
> ls > files.txt

🧱 5. Exit Command

Exit cleanly from the terminal loop.

> exit

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🧰 Tech Stack

• Language: Rust 🦀

• Core Libraries:

std::process::Command – to spawn and manage subprocesses

• std::io – for input/output handling
• std::env – for directory management

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⚙️ Installation & Run

1. Clone this repository

git clone https://github.com/your-username/rust-terminal.git
cd rust-terminal

2. Build and Run

cargo run

You’ll see your custom prompt:

> 

Start typing commands!

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🧩 Example Session

> echo "Rust is awesome!" > message.txt
> cat message.txt
Rust is awesome!
> ls | grep Cargo
Cargo.toml
> cd src
> ls
main.rs
> exit
Goodbye 👋

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💡 How It Works

1. The program reads user input in a loop.
2. It splits the input into command and arguments.
3. Special cases (cd, exit, |, >) are handled manually.
4. For all other commands, it uses Command::new() to spawn subprocesses.
5. The terminal waits for processes to finish using .wait().

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🧠 Learning Highlights

• How to spawn and pipe processes in Rust.
• How to manipulate I/O streams using Stdio::piped() and Stdio::from().
• How to implement built-in commands like cd that modify the current process state.
• Building a REPL-like loop with error handling and clean UX.

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🛠️ Future Enhancements

• Add support for input redirection (<)
• Implement command history
• Handle background processes (&)
• Colorful prompt and formatted output

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📜 License

This project is licensed under the MIT License – feel free to use, modify, and distribute!

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❤️ Acknowledgments

Inspired by the UNIX philosophy:

“Write programs that do one thing and do it well.”