UNIVERSITY OF ENGINEERING AND TECHNOLOGY, TAXILA

FACULTY OF TELECOMMUNICATION AND INFORMATION ENGINEERING

SOFTWARE ENGINEERING DEPARTMENT

Operating Systems
Experiment 6
Shell Programming –II
Switch, Loops and Functions

CLO 2. Use modern tools and languages.

CLO 3. Demonstrate an original solution of problem under discussion.
CLO 4. Work individually as well as in teams
 UNIVERSITY OF ENGINEERING AND TECHNOLOGY, TAXILA
FACULTY OF TELECOMMUNICATION AND INFORMATION ENGINEERING

SOFTWARE ENGINEERING DEPARTMENT

Shell Programming-II

The switch statement:

The case statement is good alternative to multilevel if-then-else-fi statement. It enables you to
match several values against one variable. It’s easier to read and write.
Syntax:

case $variable-name in
pattern1)
Statement(s) to be executed if pattern1 matches
;;
pattern2)
Statement(s) to be executed if pattern2 matches
;;
pattern3)
Statement(s) to be executed if pattern3 matches
;;
*)
Default condition to be executed
;;
esac

The $variable-name is compared against the patterns until a match is found. The shell then
executes all the statements up to the two semicolons that are next to each other. The default is *)
and its executed if no match is found. There is no maximum number of patterns, but the minimum
is one.
You must include ;; at the end of each command. The shell executes all the statements up to the
two semicolons that are next to each other. The esac is always required to indicate end of case
statement. This is similar to break in the C programming language.

Example:

FRUIT="kiwi"

case "$FRUIT" in
"apple") echo "Apple pie is quite tasty."
;;
"banana") echo "I like banana nut bread."
;;
"kiwi") echo "New Zealand is famous for kiwi."
 UNIVERSITY OF ENGINEERING AND TECHNOLOGY, TAXILA
FACULTY OF TELECOMMUNICATION AND INFORMATION ENGINEERING

SOFTWARE ENGINEERING DEPARTMENT

;;
esac
Output:
New Zealand is famous for kiwi.

Example:
Create a shell script called rental.sh:
# if no command line arg given
# set rental to Unknown
if [ -z $1 ] // -z flag causes test to check whether a string is empty.
then
rental="*** Unknown vehicle ***"
elseif [ -n $1 ]// -n to test for non-null strings
then
# otherwise make first arg as a rental
rental=$1
fi
fi

# use case statement to make decision for rental

case $rental in
"car") echo "For $rental rental is Rs.20 per k/m.";;
"van") echo "For $rental rental is Rs.10 per k/m.";;
"jeep") echo "For $rental rental is Rs.5 per k/m.";;
"bicycle") echo "For $rental rental 20 paisa per k/m.";;
"enfield") echo "For $rental rental Rs.3 per k/m.";;
"thunderbird") echo "For $rental rental Rs.5 per k/m.";;
*) echo "Sorry, I can not get a $rental rental for you!";;
esac

Save and close the file. Run it as follows:

chmod +x rental.sh
./rental.sh
./rental.sh jeep
./rental.sh enfield
./rental.sh bike

Explanation:
1. Here first we will check, that if $1(first command line argument) is not given then set value
of rental variable to "*** Unknown vehicle ***",
2. if value is given then set it to given value.
 UNIVERSITY OF ENGINEERING AND TECHNOLOGY, TAXILA
FACULTY OF TELECOMMUNICATION AND INFORMATION ENGINEERING

SOFTWARE ENGINEERING DEPARTMENT

3. The $rental is compared against the patterns until a match is found.

4. Here for first run its match with van and it will show output For van Rs.10 per k/m. For
second run it print, "For car Rs.20 per k/m". And for last run, there is no match for Maruti-
800, hence default i.e. *) is executed and it prints, "Sorry, I cannot get a Maruti-800 for
you". Note that esac is always required to indicate end of case statement.

The for Loop:

The for loop provides a tool for processing a list of input. The input to the for loop is a list of
values. Each iteration through the loop it extracts one value into a variable and then enters the body
of the loop. The loop stops when the extract fails because there are no more values in the list.
Example:
Consider the following example which prints each of the command line arguments, one at a
time. We'll extract them from "$@" into $var:

for var in "$@" //$@ refers to all of a shell script's command-line arguments. $1 , $2 , etc.
do
echo $var //%s means, "insert the first argument, a string, right here
done

Break Statement:
Much like C or Java, shell has a break command, also. It can be used to break out of a loop.
Consider this example which stops printing command line arguments, when it gets to one whose
value is "quit":

for var in "$@"

do
if [ "$var" = "quit" ]
then
break
fi
echo “$var”
done

Continue Statement:
Shell has a continue that works just like it does in C or Java.

for var in "$@"

do
if [ "$var" = "quit" ]
then
break
elif [ "$var" = "me" ]
then
 UNIVERSITY OF ENGINEERING AND TECHNOLOGY, TAXILA
FACULTY OF TELECOMMUNICATION AND INFORMATION ENGINEERING

SOFTWARE ENGINEERING DEPARTMENT

continue
fi
echo “your choice was $var“
done

The While loop

Syntax:

while [ condition ]
do
command1
command2
command3
..
....
Done

Loop is executed as long as given condition is true. For eg. Above for loop program can be written
using while loop as
Example:
$cat > nt1
#Script to test while statement
##
if [ $# -eq 0 ]
then
echo "Error - Number missing form command line argument"
echo "Syntax : $0 number"
echo " Use to print multiplication table for given number"
exit 1
fi

n=$1
i=1
while [ $i -le 10 ]
do
echo "$n * $i = `expr $i \* $n`"
i=`expr $i + 1`
done
Save it and try as
$ chmod +x nt1
$./nt1 7

From the above discussion note following points about loops

(a) First, the variable used in loop condition must be initialized; Next execution of the loop begins.
 UNIVERSITY OF ENGINEERING AND TECHNOLOGY, TAXILA
FACULTY OF TELECOMMUNICATION AND INFORMATION ENGINEERING

SOFTWARE ENGINEERING DEPARTMENT

(b) A test (condition) is made at the beginning of each iteration.

(c) The body of loop ends with a statement that modifies the value of the test (condition) variable.

Conditional execution i.e. && and ||

The control operators are && (read as AND) and || (read as OR).

An AND list has the

Syntax: command1 && command2
Here command2 is executed if, and only if, command1 returns an exit status of zero.

An OR list has the

Syntax: command1 || command2
Here command2 is executed if and only if command1 returns a non-zero exit status.

You can use both as follows

command1 && comamnd2 if exist status is zero || command3 if exit status is non-zero
Here if command1 is executed successfully then shell will run command2 and if command1 is not
successful then command3 is executed.

Example:

$ rm myf && echo File is removed successfully || echo File is not removed
If file (myf) is removed successful (exist status is zero) then "echo File is removed successfully"
statement is executed, otherwise "echo File is not removed" statement is executed (since exist
status is non-zero)

Functions:
Functions enable you to break down the overall functionality of a script into smaller, logical
subsections, which can then be called upon to perform their individual task when it is needed.
Creating Functions:
To declare a function, simply use the following syntax:

function_name () {
list of commands
}
The name of your function is function_name, and that's what you will use to call it from elsewhere
in your scripts. The function name must be followed by parentheses, which are followed by a list
of commands enclosed within braces.
 UNIVERSITY OF ENGINEERING AND TECHNOLOGY, TAXILA
FACULTY OF TELECOMMUNICATION AND INFORMATION ENGINEERING

SOFTWARE ENGINEERING DEPARTMENT

Example:
Following is the simple example of using function:

# Define your function here

Hello () {
echo "Hello World"
}
# Invoke your function
Hello

When you would execute above script it would produce following result:

$./test.sh
Hello World
$

Pass Parameters to a Function:

You can define a function which would accept parameters while calling those function. These
parameters would be represented by $1, $2 and so on.

Following is an example where we pass two parameters Zara and Ali and then we capture and
print these parameters in the function.

# Define your function here

Hello () {
echo "Hello World $1 $2"
}
# Invoke your function
Hello Zara Ali

This would produce following result:

 UNIVERSITY OF ENGINEERING AND TECHNOLOGY, TAXILA
FACULTY OF TELECOMMUNICATION AND INFORMATION ENGINEERING

SOFTWARE ENGINEERING DEPARTMENT

$./test.sh
Hello World Zara Ali
$

Returning Values from Functions:

If you execute an exit command from inside a function, its effect is not only to terminate
execution of the function but also of the shell program that called the function.

Instead if you want to just terminate execution of the function, then there is way to come out of a
defined function. Based on the situation you can return any value from your function using the
return command whose syntax is as follows:

return code

Here code can be anything you choose here, but obviously you should choose something that is
meaningful or useful in the context of your script as a whole.

Example:
Following function returns a value 1:
# Define your function here
Hello () {
echo "Hello World $1 $2"
return 10
}
# Invoke your function
Hello Zara Ali
# Capture value returned by last command
ret=$?
echo "Return value is $ret"

This would produce following result:

 UNIVERSITY OF ENGINEERING AND TECHNOLOGY, TAXILA
FACULTY OF TELECOMMUNICATION AND INFORMATION ENGINEERING

SOFTWARE ENGINEERING DEPARTMENT

$./test.sh
Hello World Zara Ali
Return value is 10
$

Nested Functions:
One of the more interesting features of functions is that they can call themselves as well as call
other functions. A function that calls itself is known as a recursive function.

Following simple example demonstrates a nesting of two functions:

#Calling one function from another

number_one () {
echo "This is the first function speaking..."
number_two
}
number_two () {
echo "This is now the second function speaking..."
}
# Calling function one.
number_one

This would produce following result:

This is the first function speaking...

This is now the second function speaking...

Special Parameters $* and $@:

There are special parameters that allow accessing all of the command-line arguments at once.
$* and $@ both will act the same unless they are enclosed in double quotes, "".
Both the parameter specifies all command-line arguments but:
 UNIVERSITY OF ENGINEERING AND TECHNOLOGY, TAXILA
FACULTY OF TELECOMMUNICATION AND INFORMATION ENGINEERING

SOFTWARE ENGINEERING DEPARTMENT

1. "$*" special parameter takes the entire list as one argument with spaces between.
2. "$@" special parameter takes the entire list and separates it into separate arguments.

Example:
We can write the shell script shown below to process an unknown number of command-line
arguments with either the $* or $@ special parameters:

for TOKEN in $*
do
echo $TOKEN
done

There is one sample run for the above script:

$./test.sh Zara Ali 10 Years Old
Zara
Ali
10
Years
Old

Task 1:
Write Script, using function and case statement to perform basic math operation as follows +
Addition, - Subtraction, x Multiplication, / Division. By taking the operator and numbers choice
from user and then execute the appropriate case.

Task2:
Write a shell program to generate Fibonacci series using loop up to the limit specified by user.

Sample Output:

 Enter the no: 6

 Enter the limit : 6

 Sample Output: 0 1 1 2 3 5
UNIVERSITY OF ENGINEERING AND TECHNOLOGY, TAXILA
FACULTY OF TELECOMMUNICATION AND INFORMATION ENGINEERING

SOFTWARE ENGINEERING DEPARTMENT