Bash Scripting

Objectives
Learn about the BASH shell
Learn of other shells
Learn how to use the BASH shell effectively for scripting
Learn about BASH shell variables
Learn systemd basics

2
What is a Shell?
A shell is a command-line interpreter
It is an interpretive language like JavaScript
Users direct the operation of a computer by issuing commands
Files can also contain commands and be interpreted these are
called Scripts

3
Why is a shell so importatnt?
Everything in Linux is tied directly to the shell
Desktop environments are referenced as graphical shells
The GUI provides a front end and drawing potential for shell
commands
Ex: Firefox is actually the command firefox

4
The BASH Shell
The BASH shell is an interactive shell that includes:
commands to manipulates files/directories
commands to run programs
conditional statements
other scripting features
To use the BASH shell you can type commands
You can also place the commands in a BASH script and run the
script

5
Script Execution
All scripts have to use an interpreter
The interpreter should be specified on the first line of the script
The first line should start with the shebang #!
#!/bin/bash

#!/bin/python

#!/bin/node

#!/bin/zsh

#!/bin/csh

6
Script Execution (continued)
Scripts are just text files however they have to be executable
More on this in the permissions lecture
First create the script using vi
Once you've created the file you add executable to the file with
chmod u+x script

Now to run the script use the full path of the script
/home/franco/bin/script.sh

./script.sh - remember ./ is the current directory

7
When should we script things?
Anytime a task must be repeated
Sometimes you'll need a script to start or stop a service correctly
(especially if you aren't using systemd)
Anytime you are likely to forget a complex set of arguments to
commands
For example: renewing certificates with let's encrypt

8
BASH Variables
Variables are defined by the name followed by an =
Note there cannot be a space before the equals
All variables are accessed with $ followed by the name of the
variable

var="Example"

echo $var

9
BASH Built in Variables
PATH - the path variable is used to describe where the shell can
find executable programs (denoted by file permissions)
IFS - defines the internal field separator, by default any whitespace
PWD - current working directory
USER - current user
HOME - current user's home directory
More info:
https://www.tldp.org/LDP/abs/html/internalvariables.html

10
BASH Positional Parameters
$0 - stores the script name
$1 - $9 - stores the first 8 arguments passed into the script
$? - stores the exit code of the last program run
$@ - all the arguments passed in, space separated and quoted
$* - all the arguments passed in as a single word
$# - the number of arguments passed in
$$ - the PID of the script

11
The IFS variable and Spaces
By default spaces are part of the IFS variable meaning they are
used to separate commands and command arguments
What if you need to include a space in an argument?
mkdir My Documents - will create 2 directories My and
Documents
To include the space as part of the parameter you have a few
options
Escape using \ mkdir My\ Documents
Quote with " mkdir "My Documents"
Quote with ' mkdir 'My Documents' 12
Quoting in BASH
What's the difference between ' and "?

In BASH anything quoted in the single quote will be taken literally

echo '$PATH' will output $PATH
While quoting with double quotes, BASH will parse the quoted
string for escaped charaters like variables and replace them
echo "$USER" will output root

13
Wildcard Expansion
BASH supports the use of wildcards when refering to files and
directories
For example:
ls *.* will show every file with an extension
cat * will cat every file in the current directory
Equivalent would be cat file1.txt file2.txt ... filen.txt
cat /home/*/public_html/index.html - display everyone's
index.html

14
Brace Expansion
Creating a list of items you can use brace expansion
echo {1..10} outputs 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10
You can also attach the expansion to items
mkdir Output{1..3} creates Output1, Output2, Output3
You can also create comma separated lists
cat file{.log,.err} cats file.log and file.err
You can also have an empty element
mv file{,.txt} is the same as mv file file.txt

15
Conditional Statements
The if statement checks for the successful execution of the last
command
if statements must end with fi

if {command}; then
{run if true}
fi

if ping -c 1 google.ca; then

elinks google.ca
fi

16
Conditional Statements
If statements also support else and else if

if ping -c 1 google.ca; then

elinks google.ca
else
echo "Can't reach google"
fi

if ping -c 1 google.ca; then

elinks google.ca
elif ping -c 1 bing.com; then
elinks bing.com
else
echo "Can't reach google or bing"
fi
17
backticks `
In BASH if you want the output of command to be used you can use
the backticks

#!/bin/bash

files=`ls`
echo $files

Alternatively you can use $() around your command

#!/bin/bash

files=$(ls)
echo $files
18
BASH: read
#!/bin/bash

read input
echo $input

$input is a variable containing a line of text

this is taken from standard input (which can be redirected)
then outputs the line taken in form input

19
Conditional Statements
In order to run logical checks we use a command called test
man test for details
Alternatively the command is called [ which must have ] as the
last argument
The square bracket command was created to mirror other
languages

if [ $1 -gt 5 ]; then
echo "$1 is greater than 5";
fi

20
Looping
BASH supports 3 types of loops:

for in loop
while loop
for loop

21
BASH loop: for in
#!/bin/bash

for i in `ls`; do
echo $i
done

i is the variable
Through each iteration of the for loop the contents of the output
from ls is assigned to the variable i

22
BASH loop: while
#!/bin/bash

while read line; do

echo $line
done < input.txt

In the example above we are reading input.txt one line at a time

stored in $line
This will continue until read returns an exit code that's not 0

23
BASH loop: for
#!/bin/bash

for (( i=0; i<10; i++ )); do

echo "Iteration $i"
done

This is a C style for loop

i is the variable
i is set, a condition is chosen, and an iteration is set

24
BASH: functions
Functions must be defined before they are run
Unlike other languages BASH does not require round brackets

#!/bin/bash

function firstFun() {
echo "Hello World!"
}

firstFun

25
BASH: functions (continued)
Functions can have parameters that are accessed with the
positional variables

#!/bin/bash

function funArg() {
echo $1
}

funArg test

26