In computing, a command-line interpreter, or command language interpreter, is a blanket term for a certain class of programs designed to read lines of text entered by a user, thus implementing a command-line interface.

Operating system shells

AmigaOS

• Amiga CLI/Amiga Shell

Unix-like systems

There are many variants of Unix shell:

• Bourne shell sh
  • Almquist shell (ash)
    • Debian Almquist shell (dash)
  • Bash (Unix shell) bash
  • KornShell ksh
    • Z shell zsh
• C shell csh
  • TENEX C shell tcsh
• Ch shell ch
• Emacs shell eshell
• Friendly interactive shell fish
• PowerShell pwsh
• rc shell rc, a shell for Plan 9 from Bell Labs and Unix
• Stand-alone shell sash
• Scheme Shell scsh

Microsoft Windows

Native

• COMMAND.COM, the original Microsoft command line processor introduced on MS-DOS as well as Windows 9x, in 32-bit versions of NT-based Windows via NTVDM
• cmd.exe, successor of COMMAND.COM introduced on OS/2 and Windows NT systems, although COMMAND.COM is still available in virtual DOS machines on IA-32 versions of those operating systems also.
• Recovery Console
• Windows PowerShell, a command processor based on .NET Framework
  • PowerShell, a command processor based on .NET
• Hamilton C shell, a clone of the Unix C shell by Hamilton Laboratories
• Take Command Console (4NT), a clone of CMD.EXE with added features by JP Software
• Take Command, a newer incarnation of 4NT

Unix/Linux compatibility layer and POSIX subsystem

• Interix
• MKS Toolkit
• Microsoft POSIX subsystem
• Windows Services for UNIX
• Windows Subsystem for Linux

CP/M

• Console Command Processor (CCP), the default command line interpreter
• ZCPR for the Z-System
• Microshell

DOS

• COMMAND.COM, the default command-line interpreter
• 4DOS, a compatible, but more advanced shell by JP Software
• NDOS, provided with some versions of the Norton Utilities
• GW-BASIC

OS/2

• CMD.EXE, the default command-line interpreter
• Hamilton C shell, a clone of the Unix C shell by Hamilton Laboratories
• 4OS2, a clone of CMD.EXE with additional features by JP Software

IBM i

• Control Language
• Qshell

Apple computers

• Apple DOS/ Apple ProDOS
• Macintosh Programmer's Workshop

Mobile devices

• DROS, Java ME platform based DOS-like shell for smartphones

Network routers

• Cisco IOS ^[1]
• Junos Command Line Interface (Juniper Networks) ^[2]

Minicomputer CLIs

• Data General's CLI (Command Line Interpreter) on RDOS and AOS Operating Systems and their variants
• Digital Equipment Corporation's DIGITAL Command Language (DCL)

Other

• BASIC-PLUS (RSTS/E)
• CANDE MCS – command-line shell and text editor on the MCP operating system
• Conversational Monitor System (VM/CMS)
• DOS Wedge (an extension to the Commodore 64's BASIC 2.0)
• DIGITAL Command Language (OpenVMS)
• Extensible Firmware Interface shell
• Microsoft BASIC (qualifies both for a programming language and OS)
• Singularity (operating system)
• SymShell, see SymbOS
• Time Sharing Option (MVS, z/OS)
• Atari TOS shell
• YouOS shell
• EFI-SHELL – an open source Extensible Firmware Interface command shell

Programming

Language systems

• APL
• BASIC – actually, many dialects and varieties of a programming language may have commands like kill, system, files, and others which allow operating system access from the interactive and often from programme mode
• BeanShell, a shell for Java
• F#
• J
• Haskell
• Lisp
  • Common Lisp Interface Manager
• Macintosh Programmer's Workshop, an old command-line environment used to develop software on Classic Mac OS
• Prolog
• Scala
• Smalltalk
• Standard ML

Debuggers

This section needs expansion. You can help by adding to it. (September 2012)

• DEBUG
• gdb
• DDT, a PDP-10 debugger from DEC used as a command shell for the MIT Incompatible Timesharing System
• Firebug/Chromebug, a JavaScript shell and debugging environment as a Firefox plugin

Scientific and engineering software

This section needs expansion. You can help by adding to it. (September 2012)

• MATLAB
• Wolfram Mathematica
• ROOT

Programming languages

• BeanShell – shell for Java
• JavaScript shell – several programs by this name allow interactive JavaScript ^[3]
  • Javascript Interpreter Shell
• Julia
• Jython
• Perl
• PHPsh – shell for PHP
• Python
  • IPython
• REXX
• Ruby
  • Interactive Ruby Shell
• Tcl
  • Tclsh
  • Wish (Windowing Shell)
• tkcon shell and IDE for Tcl/Tk
• Windows Script Host

Database queries

• sqsh, a shell available with some SQL implementations for database queries and other tasks.
• Google Shell, a browser-based front-end for Google Search

See also

• read–eval–print loop
• Interpreter directive
• Job Control Language
• Scripting language
• Comparison of command shells
• List of compilers

References