Book Report 
Bash scripting 
 

Harish Raja 
5th December, 2019 
 

   

 
 

Introduction 
1. Basics 
2. grep 
3. Find 
4. awk 
5. cut 
6. Sort 
7. Tr 
8. sed 

 
 
 
 

Reading Rainbow Tip: ​Was the title interesting? Did the cover spark your curiosity? Was it 
something else? Talk about why you chose the book to help your classmates understand more 
about you! 

   

1 
 

Basics 
date​
- Displays date in the current server  

echo​“Hello World”​
- T
​o print message 

echo​“Hello World $1,$2”​

- To print message with variable 

cd​~​
- Change directory to the home path 

cd ../​- Goback to previous directory 

cd​/dev/data​
- Change directory to specified path 

cp​/dev/file1.txt /prd/file2.txt​
- Copy files from one place to another 

mv​/dev/file1.txt /prd/file2.txt​
- Rename files or move files from one location 
to another 

(Move command changes the pointer to the new file name. More efficient)

touch f
​ile1.txt​- Creates an empty file with given name 

cat​file1.txt​
- View contents of a file 

cat​file1.txt ​
| head​​
-​
5​
- View first 5 lines of the file 

cat​file1.txt ​
| tail​​
-​
5​
- View last 5 lines of the file 

tail -f​file1.txt​
- View changes in file 

gzip​file1.txt​
- Zips the file to .gz file and deletes the original file 

gunzip​file1.gz​
-​UnZips the file and deletes the gz file 

zcat​messages.gz​
- View contents of a zipped file without unzipping 

diff​file1.txt file2.txt​
- Compare two files and shows the difference 

2 
 

top​
- Displays the list of processes currently running in the server. Also used 
to keep the current session ​
alive without disconnecting​
! 

File permissions 

chmod 775 -R /
​dev/data/harish 

drwxxr-rw-r: Owner,Group,Others 

0- No permission 

1- Execute 

2- Write 

4- Read 

0 No permission ---

1 Execute permission --x

2 Write permission -w-

3 Execute and write permission: 1 (execute) + 2 (write) = 3 -wx

4 Read permission r--

5 Read and execute permission: 4 (read) + 1 (execute) = 5 r-x

6 Read and write permission: 4 (read) + 2 (write) = 6 rw-

3 
 

7 All permissions: 4 (read) + 2 (write) + 1 (execute) = 7 rwx

Change ownership of file 

chown h
​arishapp:domain /dev/data/file.txt 

Vi editor 

vi ​
file1.txt-​To open files in vi editor 

:q​
- Quit without saving 

:wq​
- Save and quit 

:w​- Save the file but keep it open 

List Command 

ll​- list files with size 

ls​- List only names  

Ls Options 

a​- Show hidden files 

L​
- Long format 

R​
- Reverse order 

T​
- Sort by time and date 

S​
- Sort by file size 

4 
 

Remove Command 

pwd​
-Present working directory 

mkdir -p ​
/dev/data/harish​- Create previous directory if not created 

rm ​
file*.txt 

rm -r /
​dev/data/harish​
- Recursive delete in directory 

rm -rf /
​dev/data/harish​- Force delete without asking for permission 

sleep 5
​​-Waits for 5 seconds 

wc -l f
​ile1.txt (or) c
​at ​
file1.txt​| wc -l​- Counts the number of lines in 
file 

Invoke a shell script file 

./dev/data/initialize.sh 

sh -vx /dev/data/initialize.sh  

V - verbose mode, Displays all the actions 

nohup sh -vx /
​dev/data/initialize.sh ​
>​audit.log &
​ 

Nohup ​is a ​POSIX​ command to ignore the ​HUP​ (hangup) signal. The ​HUP​ signal is, by convention,
the way a terminal warns dependent processes of logout.To keep the processes running even after
the session is closed.

Output that would normally go to the terminal goes to a file called ​nohup.out​ if it has not already
been redirected.

5 
 

ps -ef | grep ​
“harish_test.sh”​
-​Find process id 

kill -9 ​
process_id​
- Kill the process 

CTRL+C​
- Come out the current action 

Disk space commands 

df -h​
-D
​isk usage across drives in the particular server 

du -ch​
- File size of each file in the directory 

h - Human readable format 

Grep command 
 
grep -i ​
"unix" harish.txt​
- Ignore case  

grep -n ​
"unix" harish.txt​
- Display along with line number 

grep -v ​
"unix" harish.txt​
- Display other than matched records 

grep –e ​
"Harish"​–e "
​test"​​
harish.txt​
- Multiple patterns in same command 

grep –f ​
pattern.txt​h
​arish.txt​
- Greps patterns from a file 

6 
 

Find command 

find . -type f -name "

​tecmint.txt"​-exec rm -f {} \;

. Stands for current directory 

Type - type of file f or d for directory 

find /tmp -type f -empty​

-​Finds all empty files 

find /tmp -type f -name *

​.mp3​-size +
​10M​-exec rm {} \; 

7 
 

AWK command 
awk -F '​
/pattern/​​
{action}​
' input-file 

awk '{print}' employee.txt 

101,John Doe,CEO 

awk -F: '​

/mail/​{print $1}' ​
/etc/passwd 

mail 

Mailnull 

F- Field seperator  

BEGIN,BODY,END 

awk 'BEGIN { FS="​

:​
";print "
​---header---"​} \ 

/mail/ {print $1} \ 

END { print "

​---footer---"​
}'​/etc/passwd 

---header--- 

mail 

mailnull 

---footer--- 

$ awk '{print $2}' ​

employee.txt​
- Default delimiter is space 

Doe,CEO 

8 
 

FS-Input field separator 

awk 'BEGIN { FS=","; \ 

print "
​-------------\nName\tTitle\n-------------"​} \ 

{ print $2,"\t",$3; } \ 

END {print "-------------"}' ​

employee.txt 

$ vi ​
employee-multiple-fs.txt​
- File with multiple delimiter 

101,John Doe:CEO%10000 

102,Jason Smith:IT Manager%5000 

$ awk 'BEGIN {FS="[,:%]"} {print $2, $3}' e

​mployee-multiple-fs.txt 

John Doe CEO 

Jason Smith IT Manager 

OFS - Output Field Seperator 

$ awk -F ',' 'BEGIN { OFS=":" } \ 

{ print $2, $3 }' ​

employee.txt 

John Doe:CEO 

Jason Smith:IT Manager 

9 
 

$ vi ​
employee-change-fs-ofs.txt 

101 

John Doe 

CEO 

- 

102 

Jason Smith 

IT Manager 

- 

awk 'BEGIN { FS="\n"; RS="-\n"; OFS=":" } \ 

{print $2, $3}' ​

employee-change-fs-ofs.txt 

John Doe:CEO 

Jason Smith:IT Manager 

RS- Record Seperator 

NF- number of fields 

NR- Number of records 

FNR- Number of records relative to the current physical file 

ORS - Output Record Separator 

$ awk 'BEGIN { FS=","; ORS="\n---\n" } \ 

{print $2, $3}' ​

employee.txt 

John Doe CEO 

--- 

Jason Smith IT Manager 

--- 

10 
 

$ vi​fnr.awk 

BEGIN { FS="," } 

{ printf "FILENAME=%s NR=%s FNR=%s\n", FILENAME, NR, FNR; } 

END { printf "END Block: NR=%s FNR=%s\n", NR, FNR } 

$ awk -f ​
fnr.awk employee.txt employee-multiple-fs.txt 

FILENAME=employee.txt NR=1 FNR=1 

FILENAME=employee.txt NR=2 FNR=2 

FILENAME=employee.txt NR=3 FNR=3 

FILENAME=employee.txt NR=4 FNR=4 

FILENAME=employee.txt NR=5 FNR=5 

FILENAME=employee-multiple-fs.txt NR=6 FNR=1 

FILENAME=employee-multiple-fs.txt NR=7 FNR=2 

FILENAME=employee-multiple-fs.txt NR=8 FNR=3 

FILENAME=employee-multiple-fs.txt NR=9 FNR=4 

FILENAME=employee-multiple-fs.txt NR=10 FNR=5 

END Block: NR=10 FNR=5 

11 
 

Cut command 
$ cat s
​tate.txt
Andhra Pradesh
Arunachal Pradesh
Assam
Bihar
Chhattisgarh

Character option 
$ cut -c 2,5,7 s
​tate.txt 

nr 

rah 

Sm 

$ cut -c 1-7 s
​tate.txt 

Andhra 

Arunach 

Assam 

The below command prints all the characters starting from 1st position till 
the end. 

$ cut -c 1- s
​tate.txt 

Andhra Pradesh 

Arunachal Pradesh 

Assam 

$ cut -c -5 s
​tate.txt 

Andhr 

Aruna 

Assam 

12 
 

cut -d " " -f 1 ​

state.txt

Andhra 

Arunachal 

Assam

Complement - Displays everything apart from the option 

 
$ cut --complement -d " " -f 1 ​
state.txt

Pradesh 

Pradesh 

Assam 

$ cut --complement -c 5 s
​tate.txt

Andha Pradesh 

Arunchal Pradesh 

Assa

13 
 

Sort command 
sort file.txt

abhishek 

chitransh 

divyam

 
sort -o filename.txt inputfile.txt​
- Place the o/p in given file 

sort -r inputfile.txt​
- Sort in descending 

sort -n filename.txt​
- Sort numerically 

sort -u filename.txt​
- Removes duplicates 

cat file.txt | sort | uniq -c​

- Finds the count of each line’s occurence 

uniq -d​
-Displays duplicates, one duplicate per group 

uniq -D​
-Displays duplicates, all the duplicate lines 

uniq -u​
-Displays only unique lines 

uniq -i​
-Displays unique lines while being case insensitive 

14 
 

TR command 
The tr command in UNIX is a command line utility for translating or deleting 
characters 

 
cat greekfile | tr “[a-z]” “[A-Z]”​
- Converts lowercase to uppercase

tr '{}' '()' newfile.txt​

- Converts flower to round braces

echo "Welcome To GeeksforGeeks" | tr -s [:space:] ' '​

-Convert multiple 
spaces to space 

echo "Welcome To GeeksforGeeks" | tr -d 'w'​

- Delete character

15 
 

SED command 

 
sed 's/unix/linux/' file.txt​
-Replacing or substituting string 

sed 's/unix/linux/2' geekfile.txt​

- Replace 2nd occurence line of file 

sed 's/unix/linux/2g' geekfile.txt​

- Replacing from nth occurrence to all 
occurrences in a line 

sed 's/unix/linux/g' geekfile.txt​

- Global change 

sed '3 s/unix/linux/' geekfile.txt​

- Replacing string on specific line 

sed '5d' filename.txt -

​ Remove 5th line

sed '$d' filename.txt -

​ Remove last line

sed '3,6d' filename.txt​

- Remove range of lines

sed '/abc/d' filename.txt​

- Remove pattern matching lines

sed -n '2,5p' a.txt​

- Print 2nd line to 5th line

sed '2,4d' a.txt​

- Delete range of line

16 
 

17