How to define variables
#!/bin/bash
# A simple variable example
greeting=Hello
name=Tux
echo $greeting $name
Arithmetic Expressions
Below are the operators supported by bash for mathematical calculations:
OPERATOR USAGE
+ addition
- subtraction
* multiplication
/ division
** exponentiatio
n
% modulus
Example:
#!/bin/bash
var=$((3+9))
echo $var
example2
#!/bin/bash
#
#
clear
echo "Please calculate"
echo
read r
echo
var=$(($r))
echo "Answer is $var"
echo
For decimal calculations, we can use bc command to get the output to a
particular number of decimal places. bc (Bash Calculator) is a command line
calculator that supports calculation up to a certain number of decimal points.
echo "scale=2;22/7" | bc
Where scale defines the number of decimal places required in the output.
How to read user input
#!/bin/bash
echo "Enter a numner"
read a
echo "Enter a numner"
read b
var=$((a+b))
echo $var
Numeric Comparison logical operators
Comparison is used to check if statements evaluate to true or false. We can
use the below shown operators to compare two statements:
OPERATION SYNTAX EXPLANATION
Equality num1 -eq num2 is num1 equal to num2
Greater than equal num1 -ge num2 is num1 greater than equal to
to num2
Greater than num1 -gt num2 is num1 greater than num2
Less than equal to num1 -le num2 is num1 less than equal to
num2
Less than num1 -lt num2 is num1 less than num2
Not Equal to num1 -ne num2 is num1 not equal to num2
Syntax:
if [ conditions ]
then
commands
fi
read x
read y
if [ $x -gt $y ]
then
echo X is greater than Y
elif [ $x -lt $y ]
then
echo X is less than Y
elif [ $x -eq $y ]
then
echo X is equal to Y
fi
Conditional Statements (Decision Making)
Conditions are expressions that evaluate to a boolean expression (true or
false). To check conditions, we can use if, if-else, if-elif-else and
nested conditionals.
The structure of conditional statements is as follows:
if...then...fi statements
if...then...else...fi statements
if..elif..else..fi
if..then..else..if..then..fi..fi.. (Nested Conditionals)
Syntax:
if [[ condition ]]
then
statement
elif [[ condition ]]; then
statement
else
do this by default
fi
To create meaningful comparisons, we can use AND -a and OR -o as well.
The below statement translates to: If a is greater than 40 and b is less
than 6.
if [ $a -gt 40 -a $b -lt 6 ]
Example: Let's find the triangle type by reading the lengths of its sides.
read a
read b
read c
if [ $a == $b -a $b == $c -a $a == $c ]
then
echo EQUILATERAL
elif [ $a == $b -o $b == $c -o $a == $c ]
then
echo ISOSCELES
else
echo SCALENE
fi
Looping and skipping
For loops allow you to execute statements a specific number of times.
Looping with numbers:
In the example below, the loop will iterate 5 times.
#!/bin/bash
for i in {1..5}
do
echo $i
done
Looping with strings:
We can loop through strings as well.
#!/bin/bash
for X in cyan magenta yellow
do
echo $X
done
While loop
While loops check for a condition and loop until the condition remains true. We need to provide a
counter statement that increments the counter to control loop execution.
In the example below, (( i += 1 )) is the counter statement that increments the value of i.
Example:
#!/bin/bash
i=1
while [[ $i -le 10 ]] ; do
echo "$i"
(( i += 1 ))
done
Reading files
Suppose we have a file sample_file.txt as shown below:
image-151
We can read the file line by line and print the output on the screen.
#!/bin/bash
LINE=1
while read -r CURRENT_LINE
do
echo "$LINE: $CURRENT_LINE"
((LINE++))
done < "sample_file.txt"
Output:
Lines with line number printed
Lines with line number printed
How to execute commands with back ticks
If you need to include the output of a complex command in your script, you can write the statement
inside back ticks.
Syntax:
var= ` commands `
Example: Suppose we want to get the output of a list of mountpoints with tmpfs in their name. We
can craft a statement like this: df -h | grep tmpfs.
To include it in the bash script, we can enclose it in back ticks.
#!/bin/bash
var=`df -h | grep tmpfs`
echo $var
Output:
image-118
How to get arguments for scripts from the command line
It is possible to give arguments to the script on execution.
$@ represents the position of the parameters, starting from one.
#!/bin/bash
for x in $@
do
echo "Entered arg is $x"
done
Run it like this:
./script arg1 arg2
image-155
How to Automate Scripts by Scheduling via cron Jobs
Cron is a job scheduling utility present in Unix like systems. You can schedule jobs to execute daily,
weekly, monthly or in a specific time of the day. Automation in Linux heavily relies on cron jobs.
Below is the syntax to schedule crons:
# Cron job example
* * * * * sh /path/to/script.sh
Here, * represents minute(s) hour(s) day(s) month(s) weekday(s), respectively.
Below are some examples of scheduling cron jobs.
SCHEDULE SCHEDULED VALUE
50*8* At 00:05 in August.
54**6 At 04:05 on Saturday.
0 22 * * 1-5 At 22:00 on every day-of-week from Monday through Friday.
You can learn about cron in detail in this blog post.
How to Check Existing Scripts in a System
Using crontab
crontab -l lists the already scheduled scripts for a particular user.
My scheduled scripts
My scheduled scripts
Using the find command
The find command helps to locate files based on certain patterns. As most of the scripts end with .sh,
we can use the find script like this:
find . -type f -name "*.sh"
Where,
. represents the current directory. You can change the path accordingly.
-type f indicates that the file type we are looking for is a text based file.
*.sh tells to match all files ending with .sh.
image-159
If you are interested to read about the find command in detail, check my
