INFO 212

Shell Scripting
• So far, we have used shells interactively.

• However, shells can also be used as programming

environments:
 Shell scripting means running a script, as a
program, on a shell.

• Default shell on most Unix systems nowadays is bash

(Bourne-again shell):
 bash is a derivative of the oldest shell known as
Bourne shell (sh).
2
 Input/Output
• The basic I/O statements are:
 echo for displaying text.
 read for reading input from the keyboard.

• Shell script should be stored in a file with extension .sh

such as example1.sh.

• Then it can be executed as follows:

 ./example1.sh
 bash example1.sh

• Make sure you have execution file permission:

 chmod +x example1.sh
3
 io.sh
• read statement takes all characters typed until the
[ENTER] key is pressed and stores them into the given
variable.

#!/bin/bash
echo Name a fruit?
read FRUIT
echo Vegetable?
read VEGGIE
echo $FRUIT and $VEGGIE are healthy foods

4
 io.sh
• echo statement will print multiple arguments.

> bash io.sh

Name a fruit?
apple pie
Vegetable?
ice cream cake
apple pie and ice cream cake are healthy foods

echo eliminates redundant whitespace (spaces

and tabs) and leaves a single space between
arguments. 5
 io.sh
• a programmer is most likely displaying text and would
benefit from a default behavior where spacing was
singularized.

• This behavior can be suppressed by enclosing the

desired output within double quotes.

• The string of multiple words is then treated as a single

argument.

echo “$FRUIT and $VEGGIE are healthy foods”

6
 Special Symbols

• # symbol starts a comment, where everything after it is

considered part of the comment.

• $ symbol indicates that the rest of the string is the name

of a variable.

• \ symbol is an escape sequence and indicates that the

next character should be displayed literally; this allows
for the display of the reserved symbols in output.

7
 Special Symbols

• The use of single quotes ‘’ indicates that everything

inside them should be displayed literally including any
special symbols.

• The braces {} can be used to enclose the name of a

variable when it is to be displayed adjacent to other text;
in this manner, the shell knows the extent of the variable
name.

8
 symbols.sh
#!/bin/bash
# This is a comment
# Special symbols include # $ \ ’ {}

HI=Hello

echo HI
echo $HI
echo \$HI
echo '$HI'
echo "$HI"
echo "$HIJ"
echo "${HI}J"
12
 Variables
• Variables do not need to be explicitly declared before
being used.

• The first time a new variable name is seen, the shell

programming environment allocates space for it
automatically.

• Unlike C, the type of data held by the variable is also

unimportant.

• There is only one type of variable, and no distinction is

made between text and numeric data, or between
different types of numeric data.
13
 Variables
• All variables are stored as strings.

• Numeric operations can be performed upon variables,

but the variables are passed to the appropriate operator
as strings and then converted before the numeric
operation is performed.

• If a numeric result is stored in a variable, it is

automatically converted back to a string before storage.

• The idea is to relieve any burden upon the programmer

with regards to explicit data typing.

14
 Variables
• By convention, variables are often named using all
uppercase letters. This allows them to be seen more
easily and differentiated from other code.

• If a variable is named using two or more words, then by

convention the underscore character is often used to
separate the words.

#!/bin/bash
ROCKS=4
echo Price?
read PRICE
echo "$ROCKS rocks for sale, $PRICE each"
15
 Automatically Declared Variables

#!/bin/bash
echo Run with $# arguments
echo First three command line arguments:
echo $0
echo $1
echo $2
echo $3
echo PID is $$

> ./automatic.sh arg1 arg2 arg3

16
 Loops
• Loops can be created in bash using either: for or while.

for varname in list

do
command1
command2
..
done

• for, in, do and done are keywords.

17
 loops.sh

#!/bin/bash

for i in 1 2 5 tree frog

do
echo "file${i}.txt“
done

18
 Loops
• You can also loop through using range of numbers in the
for loop “in” using brace expansion.

• Increment is 1 by default.

for num in {1..10}

do
echo "Number: $num"
done
19
 Loops
• To edit loop list increment.

for num in {1..10..2}

do
echo "Number: $num"
done

20
 loops2.sh
• while statement is used in shell scripting as it is used in
many languages, namely, for the processing of data of
unknown length.

#!/bin/bash
NAME=Unknown
while [ $NAME != "Fred" ]
do
echo Who are you?
read NAME
echo “Let me see ...”
done
21
echo Found you!
 Let keyword

#!/bin/bash

a=2334 # Integer.
let "a += 1"
echo "a = $a " # a = 2335

22
 Conditional
• if statement is the primary method of program flow
control in shell scripting.

• The if statement tests a condition; if the condition is true,

then the code inside the delimiters then and fi is
executed.

if [ conditional expression ]
then
statement1
statement2
. 23
fi
 conditional.sh

#!/bin/bash

NAME="Fred“
if [ $NAME = "Fred" ]
then
echo Matches
fi
24
 conditional.sh

#!/bin/bash

if [ $1 = "Fred" ]
then
echo Matches
fi

>./conditional.sh Fred 25
 Test
• if statement (and while statement) use the test program
to evaluate a condition.

• The test program can be called by its full name, “test,” or

by a convenient shorthand alias using square brackets.

if [ conditional expression ]
then
statement1
statement2
.
fi 26
 test.sh

#!/bin/bash
NAME="Joe“
if test $NAME = "Fred"
then
echo Hello Fred
fi

if [ $NAME = "Joe" ]
then
echo Hello Joe
fi 27
 Test
• The square brackets syntax is usually preferred because
it is shorter and somewhat easier to read.

• When using the square bracket syntax, all arguments

within the square brackets must have preceding and
succeeding spaces.

28
 Conditional
• if statement can contain else clauses, similar to most
programming languages.

if [ conditional expression ]
then
statement1
…
else
statement2
….
fi 29
 conditional2.sh

#!/bin/bash
NAME="Joe“

if [ $NAME = "Fred" ]
then
echo Matches
else
echo No match
fi 30
 Conditional
• Multiple if statements can be chained using the elif
statement.

if [ conditional expression ]
then
statement1
elif [ conditional expression2 ]
then
statement2
else
statement3
31
fi
 conditional3.sh

#!/bin/bash
COUNT=99
if [ $COUNT -eq 100 ]
then
echo "Count is 100“
elif [ $COUNT -gt 100 ]
then
echo "Count is greater than 100“
else
echo "Count is less than 100“
fi 32
 Conditional
• if statements can also be used to evaluate simple string
equivalencies, non-equality and other conditions.

• Use != to test for inequality.

• The -z option tests if a string is empty.

• The -n string tests if a string is not empty.

33
 conditional4.sh

#!/bin/bash

NAME="Fred”

if [ "$NAME" != "Joe" ]
then
echo Where\’s Joe?
fi

34
 conditional5.sh
#!/bin/bash

GHOST="“

if [ -z "$GHOST" ]
then
echo Boo!
fi

if [ -n "$GHOST" ]
then
echo I’m not a ghost.
35
fi
 Conditional
• The flag -lt tests if the first argument is less than the
second.

• The flag -gt tests if the first argument is greater than the
second.

• The flags -le and -ge also test for equality but include the
case where the arguments are equal in the evaluation.

36
 conditional6.sh
#!/bin/bash

i=7
j=9

if [ "$i" -lt "$j" ]

then
echo Lesser
fi

if [ "$i" -gt "$j" ]

then
echo Greater
fi
37
 Conditional
• The flag -f tests whether or not a file with the given name
exists.

• The flags -r, -w and -x test whether or not the read, write,
and execute permissions for the file are set.

• The flag -d tests if the given filename is a directory.

38
 conditional7.sh
#!/bin/bash

FILE=conditional7.sh

if [ -f "$FILE" ]
then
echo FILE exists
fi

if [ -x "$FILE" ]
then
echo FILE is executable
39
fi