The Apache HBase Shell is (J)Ruby's IRB with some HBase particular commands added. Anything you can do in IRB, you should be able to do in the HBase Shell.

To run the HBase shell, do as follows:

$ ./bin/hbase shell

Type help and then <RETURN> to see a listing of shell commands and options. Browse at least the paragraphs at the end of the help emission for the gist of how variables and command arguments are entered into the HBase shell; in particular note how table names, rows, and columns, etc., must be quoted.

See Procedure 1.2, “Use HBase For the First Time” for example basic shell operation.

Here is a nicely formatted listing of all shell commands by Rajeshbabu Chintaguntla.

$ ./bin/hbase org.jruby.Main PATH_TO_SCRIPT