It basically involves writing a series of commands that are interpreted one by one at runtime unlike programming languages that are compiled first before running.
So yes we will be talking with bash through scripts.
Bash is one of several well known UNIX shells, its wide distribution with Linux makes it an important tool to know.
Although Bash is primarily a command interpreter, it's also a programming language. Bash supports variables, functions and has control flow constructs, such as conditional statements and loops. .
Shell is an environment in which we can run our commands, programs, and shell scripts. There are differen t flavors of a shell, just as there are different flavors of operating systems.
Evolution of shell
-
Bourne shell - the first shell to appear on Unix systems
-
C shell- csh, was modeled on the C programming language
-
Korn Shell - It incorporated all the features from the c shell (csh) and tcsh(a type of shell) .It is faster than C shell.
-
Bash - It is an improved bourne shell and incorporates useful features from the Korn shell and the C shell .
To create a script file save it with .sh extension and the below code.
#!/bin/bash
echo "How are you bash?"
To execute the above script you can either use "bash my-script.sh" or " ./myscipt.sh " .Also don't forget to give execute permissions.
The first line of every script should provide the path to the interpreter after the Shebang (#!)
A variable is nothing more than a pointer to the actual data. The bash enables you to create, assign, and delete variables.
Syntax variable_name=variable_value //syntax to delcare a variable
Types of variables
i. Local Variables − A local variable is a variable that is present within the current instance of the shell and are declared using local keyword.
ii. Environment Variables − An environment variable is available to any child process of the shell and are declared using export keyword.
Example
#!/bin/bash
str1="Bash" //declares variable
str2="Scripting"
echo "$str1 $str2" //prints "Bash Scripting"
unset str1 //deletes a variable
unset str2
Bash supports the following operations
- Arithmetic Operators
- Relational Operators
- Boolean Operators
- String Operators
- File Test Operators
While writing a bash script, there may be a situation when you need to adopt one path out of the given two paths. So you need to make use of conditional statements that allow your program to make correct decisions and perform the right actions.
The following are conditional statements which are used to perform different actions based on different conditions.
- The if..elif..else statement
- a series of if statements can be written , where each if is part of the else clause of the previous statement. Here statement(s) are executed based on the true condition, if none of the condition is true then else block is executed.
- Example ( bash function to compare 2 values)
equal(){
if [ $1 -eq $2 ]
then
echo "Equal"
elif [ $1 -gt $2 ]
then
echo "$1 is big"
elif [ $1 -lt $2 ]
then
echo "$2 is big"
fi
}
-
The case...esac statement
-
used when all of the branches depend on the value of a single variable.
-
Example ( bash function to spell a digit)
spellDigit(){ case $1 in 0) echo "Zero" ;; 1) echo "One" ;; 2) echo "Two" ;; 3) echo "Three" ;; 4) echo "Four" ;; 5) echo "Five" ;; 6) echo "Six" ;; 7) echo "Seven" ;; 8) echo "Eight" ;; 9) echo "Nine" ;; *) echo "Unknown digit" ;; esac } -
A loop is a powerful programming tool that enables you to execute a set of commands repeatedly.The types of loops available are :
-
The while loop
- enables you to execute a set of commands repeatedly until some condition occurs.
- Example
printNaturalNumber(){ i=1 while [ $i -le $1 ] do echo "$i" i=`expr $i + 1` done } -
The for loop - for loop operates on lists of items. - Example
#!/bin/bash
printFiles(){
for FILE in $1/*
do
echo "$FILE"
done
}
printFiles .
- The until loop
- execute a set of commands until a condition is true.
- works just opposite of while loop
- Example
printNaturalNumber(){
i=1
until [ $i -ge $1 ]
do
echo "$i"
i=`expr $i + 1`
done
}
- The select loop
- The select loop provides an easy way to create a numbered menu from which users can select options.
- It is useful when you need to ask the user to choose one or more items from a list of choices.
- Example
printSelect(){
HISTORY=Start
select PAGE in Home Login Admin Student Faculty Exam Result Close
do
HISTORY=$HISTORY-\>$PAGE
if [[ $PAGE = Close ]]
then
break
else
echo "Currently you are on $PAGE page."
fi
done
echo "Your browsing history is : $HISTORY"
}
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 tasks when needed. Functions can be defined in two ways :
function_name () {
#commands
}
OR
function function_name {
#commands
}
Pass Parameters to a Function
#!/bin/bash
foo() {
echo "Parameters received : $1 $2"
}
foo Hello Bash
** Returning Values from Functions** Based on the situation you can return any value from your function using the return command which can be captured by $? from where the function is called.
#!/bin/sh
add(){
local sum=`expr $1 + $2`
return sum
}
add 10 20
sum=$?
echo "Sum is $sum"
Arrays provide a method of grouping a set of variables. Instead of creating a new name for each variable that is required, you can use a single array variable that stores all the other variables.
-
Declaration syntax
declare -a array_namearray_name=[value1,value2,....valueN] -
Common usage syntax
arr=() // Create an empty array
${#arr[@]} // Calculate array size arr[0]=3 // Overwrite 1st element arr+=(4) // Append value(s) $ {arr[@]:s:n} // Retrieve n elements starting at index s -
Example to iterate over an array
arr=(1 sam 3 4 5) for i in ${arr[@]} do echo $i done```
Dictionary / associative arrays / hash map are very useful data structures and they can be created in bash.
-
Syntax
$ declare -A dictionary_name
-
Adding key-value pairs
$ dictionary_name[key]=value
-
Retrieve key-values
echo ${dictionary_name[key]}
-
Delete a key in a dictionary
unset dictionary_name[key]
-
Example
#/bin/bash
foo-dict() {
declare -A person
person=([name]=sam [age]=10 [gender]=male)
echo ${person["name"]} // prints sam
echo "All values are : ${person[@]} "
unset person[age] // deletes a pair
echo "All values are : ${person[*]} "
echo "All keys are : ${!person[*]} "
unset person // delete complete person
}
foo-dict