How to de-bug the shell script?

While programming shell sometimes you need to find the errors (bugs) in shell
script and correct the
errors (remove errors - debug). For this purpose you can use -v and -x option with
sh or bash command
to debug the shell script. General syntax is as follows:
Syntax:
sh option { shell-script-name }
OR
bash option { shell-script-name }
Option can be
-v Print shell input lines as they are read.
-x After expanding each simple-command, bash displays the expanded value of PS4
system variable,
followed by the command and its expanded arguments.
Example:
$ cat > dsh1.sh
#
# Script to show debug of shell
#
tot=`expr $1 + $2`
echo $tot
Press ctrl + d to save, and run it as
$ chmod 755 dsh1.sh
$ ./dsh1.sh 4 5
9
$ sh -x dsh1.sh 4 5
#
# Script to show debug of shell
#
tot=`expr $1 + $2`
expr $1 + $2
++ expr 4 + 5
+ tot=9
echo $tot
+ echo 9
9
See the above output, -x shows the exact values of variables (or statements are
shown on screen with
values).
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$ sh -v dsh1.sh 4 5
Use -v option to debug complex shell script.
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Introduction
Linux contains powerful utility programs. You can use these utility to
Locate system information
For better file management
To organize your data
System administration etc
Following section introduce you to some of the essential utilities as well as
expression. While
programming shell you need to use these essential utilities. Some of these
utilities (especially sed & awk)
requires understanding of expression. After the quick introduction to utilities,
you will learn the
expression.
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getopts command Up Preparing for Quick Tour of essential
utilities
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Prepering for Quick Tour of essential
utilities
For this part of tutorial create sname and smark data files as follows (Using text
editor of your choice)
Note Each data block is separated from the other by TAB character i.e. while
creating the file if you type
11 then press "tab" key, and then write Vivek (as shown in following files):
sname
Sr.No Name
11 Vivek
12 Renuka
13 Prakash
14 Ashish
15 Rani
smark
Sr.No Mark
11 67
12 55
13 96
14 36
15 67
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Selecting portion of a file using cut utility
Suppose from sname file you wish to print name of student on-screen, then from
shell (Your command
prompt i.e. $) issue command as follows:
$cut -f2 sname
Vivek
Renuka
Prakash
Ashish
Rani
cut utility cuts out selected data from sname file. To select Sr.no. field from
sname give command as
follows:
$cut -f1 sname
11
12
13
14
15
Command Explanation
cut Name of cut utility
-f1
Using (-f) option, you are specifying the extraction field number. (In this example
its 1 i.e. first field)
sname File which is used by cut utility and which is use as input for cut utility.
You can redirect output of cut utility as follows
$cut -f2 sname > /tmp/sn.tmp.$$
$cut -f2 smark > /tmp/sm.tmp.$$
$cat /tmp/sn.tmp.$$
Vivek
Renuka
Prakash
Ashish
Rani
$cat /tmp/sm.tmp.$$
67
55
96
36
67
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General Syntax of cut utility:
Syntax:
cut -f{field number} {file-name}
Use of Cut utility:
Selecting portion of a file.
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Putting lines together using paste utility
Now enter following command at shell prompt
$ paste sname smark
11 Vivek 11 67
12 Renuka 12 55
13 Prakash 13 96
14 Ashish 14 36
15 Rani 15 67
Paste utility join textual information together. To clear your idea try following
command at shell prompt:
$ paste /tmp/sn.tmp.$$ /tmp/sm.tmp.$$
Vivek 67
Renuka 55
Prakash 96
Ashish 36
Rani 67
Paste utility is useful to put textual information together located in various
files.
General Syntax of paste utility:
Syntax:
paste {file1} {file2}
Use of paste utility:
Putting lines together.
Can you note down basic difference between cut and paste utility?
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The join utility
Now enter following command at shell prompt:
$join sname smark
11 Vivek 67
12 Renuka 55
13 Prakash 96
14 Ashish 36
15 Rani 67
Here students names are matched with their appropriate marks. How ? join utility
uses the Sr.No. field to
join to files. Notice that Sr.No. is the first field in both sname and smark file.
General Syntax of join utility:
Syntax:
join {file1} {file2}
Use of join utility:
The join utility joins, lines from separate files.
Note that join will only work, if there is common field in both file and if values
are identical to each
other.
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tr
utility
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Translateing range of characters using tr
utility
Type the following command at shell prompt:
$ tr "h2" "3x" < sname
11 Vivek
1x Renuka
13 Prakas3
14 As3is3
15 Rani
You can clearly see that each occurrence of character 'h' is replace with '3' and
'2' with 'x'. tr utility
translate specific characters into other specific characters or range of characters
into other ranges.
h -> 3
2 -> x
Consider following example: (after executing command type text in lower case)
$ tr "[a-z]" "[A-Z]"
hi i am Vivek
HI I AM VIVEK
what a magic
WHAT A MAGIC
{Press CTRL + C to terminate.}
Here tr translate range of characters (i.e. small a to z) into other (i.e. to
Capital A to Z) ranges.
General Syntax & use of tr utility:
Syntax:
tr {pattern-1} {pattern-2}
Use of tr utility:
To translate range of characters into other range of characters.
After typing following paragraph, I came to know my mistake that entire paragraph
must be in lowercase
characters, how to correct this mistake? (Hint - Use tr utility)
$ cat > lcommunity.txt
THIS IS SAMPLE PARAGRAPH
WRITTEN FOR LINUX COMMUNITY,
BY VIVEK G GITE (WHO ELSE?)
OKAY THAT IS OLD STORY.
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Data manipulation using awk utility
Before learning more about awk create data file using any text editor or simply vi:
inventory
egg order 4
cacke good 10
cheese okay 4
pen good 12
floppy good 5
After crating file issue command
$ awk '/good/ { print $3 }' inventory
10
12
5
awk utility, select each record from file containing the word "good" and performs
the action of printing
the third field (Quantity of available goods.). Now try the following and note down
its output.
$ awk '/good/ { print $1 " " $3 }' inventory
General Syntax of awk utility:
Syntax:
awk 'pattern action' {file-name}
For $ awk '/good/ { print $3 }' inventory example,
/good/ Is the pattern used for selecting lines from file.
{print
$3}
This is the action; if pattern found, print on of such action. Here $3 means third
record in
selected record. (What $1 and $2 mean?)
inventory File which is used by awk utility which is use as input for awk utility.
Use of awk utility:
To manipulate data.
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sed utility - Editing file without using
editor
For this part of tutorial create data file as follows
teaormilk
India's milk is good.
tea Red-Lable is good.
tea is better than the coffee.
After creating file give command
$ sed '/tea/s//milk/g' teaormilk > /tmp/result.tmp.$$
$ cat /tmp/result.tmp.$$
India's milk is good.
milk Red-Lable is good.
milk is better than the coffee.
sed utility is used to find every occurrence of tea and replace it with word milk.
sed - Steam line editor
which uses 'ex' editors command for editing text files without starting ex. (Cool!,
isn't it? no use of text
editor to edit anything!!!)
/tea/
Find tea word or select all lines having the
word tea
s//milk/
Replace (substitute) the word milk for the
tea.
g Make the changes globally.
Syntax:
sed {expression} {file}
Use of sed utility: sed is used to edit (text transformation) on given stream i.e a
file or may be input from
a pipeline.
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