UNIX Desktop Questions & Answers

Taking a class and having trouble with this whole section.

1. What is the name of the action the shell performs on your command-line after you hit the ENTER key (i.e., to cut your command-line syntax into its constituent tokens, including its commands, options and arguments)?
Hint: It is a word that begins with a “p”

2. What is the name of the important shell variable that is used to find where the command you entered might be stored in the file system, allowing you to make changes to these locations as needed (i.e., to add your own, personal ~/bin directory to the search list)?
Hint: It is a word that begins with a “P”


3. Figure out what the following sequence of commands is trying to accomplish - that is, the end result - and write a single command-line syntax to achieve the same result, using sort as a filter (i.e., don't use sort as the first command), and without creating any new files at all (that is, other than the one that already existed before you started your command-line, and that serves as the input in this example). Do not create and then delete files in your solution. Type your command-line solution:
Hint: Do not use any temp files...

$ sort list > temp
$ lpr temp
$ rm temp