Advanced SUSE Linux
Enterprise Server
Administration (Course 3038)
Chapter 6
Create Shell Scripts
Objectives
Use Basic Script Elements
Use Variable Substitution Operators
Use Control Structures
Use Advanced Scripting Techniques
Learn About Useful Commands in Shell Scripts
Advanced SUSE Linux Enterprise Server Administratio
Use Basic Script Elements
Objectives
Flow Charts for Scripts
The Basic Rules of Shell Scripting
How to Develop Scripts That Read User Input
How to Perform Basic Script Operations with
Variables
How to Use Command Substitution
How to Use Arithmetic Operations
Advanced SUSE Linux Enterprise Server Administratio
Flow Charts for Scripts
Programming elements of a script
Often visualized by using program flow charts
Flow charts benefits
Force author to lay down the steps the script should
perform
Provide a clear symbolic outline of the algorithm
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Flow Charts for Scripts (continued)
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The Basic Rules of Shell Scripting
Shell script
ASCII text file
Contains commands to be executed in sequence
Permissions for script file must be set to r and x
chmod +x script.sh
Run shell script with sh script.sh
Create a /bin directory for scripts under each users
home directory
Add this directory to the users search path
export PATH=$PATH:~/bin
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The Basic Rules of Shell Scripting
(continued)
Add an .sh extension to the script filename
Make sure script filename is not identical to existing
commands
Elements of a script
Start
Commands
Stop
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The Basic Rules of Shell Scripting
(continued)
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Exercise 6-1 Produce Output from a
Script
In this exercise, you will produce output from a script
using the echo command
Advanced SUSE Linux Enterprise Server Administratio
How to Develop Scripts That Read
User Input
Command read
Used to create scripts that read user input
Takes a variable as an argument
And stores the read input in the variable
Variable can then be used to process the user input
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How to Develop Scripts That Read
User Input (continued)
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Exercise 6-2 Read User Input
In this exercise, you will use the read command in a
shell script to accept user input
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How to Perform Basic Script
Operations with Variables
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Exercise 6-3 Simple Operations with
Variables
In this exercise, you will practice performing simple
operations with variables
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How to Use Command Substitution
Command substitution
Output of a command is used in a shell command line
or a shell script
Example 1: printing output
echo "Today is `date +%m/%d/%Y`"
Example 2: assigning output to a variable
TODAY=`date +%m/%d/%Y`
echo "Today is $TODAY"
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Exercise 6-4 Use Command
Substitution
In this exercise, you will practice using command
substitution
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How to Use Arithmetic Operations
Bourne shell is limited in this regard
Can perform operations by relying on external
commands (such as expr)
Bash shell
Comes with built-in support for arithmetic operations
Limited in the following ways
Only supports operations with whole numbers
All values are signed 64-bit values
Needs to use external commands, such as bc, for
floating-point calculations
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How to Use Arithmetic Operations
(continued)
Use the external command expr
A=`expr $B + 10`
Use the Bash built-in command let
let A="$B + 10
Use arithmetic expressions inside parentheses or
brackets
A=$((B + 10)) or A=$[B + 10]
Use the built-in command declare
declare -i A
declare -i B
A=B+10
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Exercise 6-5 Use Arithmetic
Operations
In this exercise, you will practice using arithmetic
operations
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Use Variable Substitution Operators
Variable substitution operators
Used to assign different values to variables
Without having to rely on external commands
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Use Variable Substitution Operators
(continued)
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Exercise 6-6 Use Variable Substitution
In this exercise, you will practice using variable
substitution
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Use Control Structures
Objectives
Create Basic Branches with the if Command
Build Multiple Branches with a case Statement
Create Loops Using the while and until Commands
Process Lists with the for Loop
Interrupt Loop Processing
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Create Basic Branches with the if
Command
Basic usage of the if command
if condition
then
commands
fi
Optional else statement
if condition
then
command1
else
command2
fi
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Create Basic Branches with the if
Command (continued)
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Create Basic Branches with the if
Command (continued)
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Create Basic Branches with the if
Command (continued)
Example: birthday script
echo "Please enter your date of birth (YYYY-MM-DD, for
instance 1978-06-21): "
read BIRTHDAY
BIRTHDAY=${BIRTHDAY#*-}
TODAY= date + %m-%d
if test "$BIRTHDAY" = "$TODAY"
then
echo "Tada! Happy birthday to you! Nice presents
awaiting you ..."
else
echo "Sorry to disappoint you, no presents today ..."
fi
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Create Basic Branches with the if
Command (continued)
elif command
if condition1
then
command1
elif condition2
command2
else
command3
fi
Logical separators
&& and ||
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Create Basic Branches with the if
Command (continued)
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Exercise 6-7 Use the if Command
In this exercise, you will practice using the if
command
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Build Multiple Branches with a case
Statement
case statement structure
case $variable in
expression1) command1;;
expression2) command2;;
esac
Example
#!/bin/bash
cat << EOF
Name me an animal and I will tell you how many legs
it
has!
EOF
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Build Multiple Branches with a case
Statement (continued)
Example (continued)
read CREATURE
case "$CREATURE" in
dog | cat | mouse ) echo "A $CREATURE has 4 legs."
;;
bird | human | monkey ) echo "A $CREATURE has 2 legs."
;;
spider ) echo "A $CREATURE has 8 legs."
;;
fly ) echo "A $CREATURE has 6 legs."
;;
* ) echo "I haven t the faintest idea how many
legs a(n) $CREATURE has."
;;
esac
exit 0
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Build Multiple Branches with a case
Statement (continued)
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Exercise 6-8 Use the case Command
In this exercise, you will practice using the case
command
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Create Loops Using the while and until
Commands
while loop
while condition
do
commands
done
until loop
until condition
do
commands
done
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Create Loops Using the while and until
Commands (continued)
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Exercise 6-9 Use the while and until
Command
In this exercise, you will practice using the while and
until commands
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Process Lists with the for Loop
for loop
for variable in element1 element2 element3
do
commands
done
Example
LIMIT=10
for ((a=1; a <= LIMIT ; a++))
do
echo -n "$a "
done
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Exercise 6-10 Use the for Loop
In this exercise, you will practice using the for loop
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Interrupt Loop Processing
continue command
Exits from the current iteration of a loop
Resumes with the next iteration of the loop
Example
for FILE in ls *.mp3
do
if test -e /MP3/$FILE
then
echo "The file $FILE exists."
continue
fi
cp $FILE /MP3
done
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Exercise 6-11 Interrupt Loop
Processing
In this exercise, you will practice using the continue
command to interrupt loop processing
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Use Advanced Scripting Techniques
Options
Use Shell Functions
Read Options with getopts
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Use Shell Functions
Use functions
To perform a task multiple times
Shell functions
Normally defined at the beginning of a script
Syntax
functionname () {
commands
commands
}
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Use Shell Functions (continued)
Generate a function
function functionname {
commands
commands
}
Example
# mcd: mkdir + cd; creates a new directory and
# changes into that new directory right away
mcd (){
mkdir $1
cd $1
}
...
mcd directory
...
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Exercise 6-12 Use Shell Functions
In this exercise, you will practice using shell
functions
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Read Options with getopts
getopts
Extracts options supplied to a script on the command
line
Shell command-line arguments
Command options prefixed with a -
Syntax
getopts optionstring variable
optionstring describes all options to be recognized
Option string is followed by a variable
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Read Options with getopts (continued)
Example
while getopts abc: variable
do
case $variable in
a ) echo "The option -a was used." ;;
b ) echo "The option -b was used." ;;
c ) option_c="$OPTARG"
echo "Option c has been set." ;;
esac
done
echo $option_c
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Exercise 6-13 Use the getopts
Command
In this exercise, you will practice using the getopts
command
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Learn About Useful Commands in
Shell Scripts
Objectives
Use the cat Command
Use the cut Command
Use the date Command
Use the echo Command
Use the grep and egrep Commands
Use the sed Command
Use the test Command
Use the tr Command
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Use the cat Command
Combined with the << (here) operator
Outputs several lines of text from a script
Interactive use
Mostly run with a filename as an argument
Prints the file contents on standard output
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Use the cut Command
Cuts out sections of lines from a file
Specified section is printed on standard output
Use cut -f to cut out text fields
cut -c works with the specified characters
You can specify single sections (characters or fields)
Or several sections
Default delimiter to separate fields from each other
is a tab
Specify a different field separator with the -d option
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Use the date Command
Used to obtain a date or time string
For further processing by a script
Examples
date -I
2007-09-03
date +%m-%d %H:%M
09-03 14:19
date +%D, %r
09/03/07, 02:19:58 PM
date +%A, %e. %B %Y
Friday, 3. September 2007
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Use the echo Command
Prints text lines on standard output
Line break is inserted automatically after each line
With the -e option, echo accepts a number of
additional options
Special sequences
\a outputs an alert
\c do not add a new line
\n add a new line
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Use the grep and egrep Commands
Used to search files for certain patterns
Syntax
grep searchpattern filename ...
Commands support various options
Example
tux@DA1:~> egrep (b|B)lurb file*
bash: syntax error near unexpected token |
tux@DA1:~> egrep "(b|B)lurb" file*
file1:blurb
file2:Blurb
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Use the sed Command
Sed is a stream editor
Editor used from the command line rather than
interactively
Syntax
sed editing-command filename
Available editing commands
d: Delete
s: Substitute (replace)
p: Output line
a: Append after
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Use the sed Command (continued)
Command-line options include
-n, --quiet, --silent
-e command1 -e command2 ....
-f filename
Supports regular expressions
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Use the sed Command (continued)
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Use the test Command
Used to compare values
And to check for files and their properties
If a tested condition is true
test returns an exit status of 0
Otherwise, test returns an exit status of 1
Syntax
test condition
Testing whether a file exists
See Table 6-3
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Use the test Command (continued)
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Use the test Command (continued)
Comparing two files
See Table 6-4
Comparing two integers
See Table 6-5
Testing strings
See Table 6-6
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Use the test Command (continued)
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Use the test Command (continued)
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Use the test Command (continued)
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Use the test Command (continued)
Combined tests
See Table 6-7
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Use the test Command (continued)
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Use the tr Command
Used to translate (replace) or delete characters
Reads from standard input
Prints the result on standard output
Syntax
tr set1 set2
Examples
cat text-file | tr a-z A-Z
tr -d set1
VAR=echo $VAR | tr -d %
tr -s set1 char
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Summary
Shell scripts contain Linux commands that execute in
the shell
Before creating a shell script
Use flow chart symbols to plan its flow control
Shell scripts start with a shebang
Denotes the shell that is called to run the commands
User input may be obtained using the read command
echo command sends output to the terminal screen
Backticks are used to perform command substitution
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Summary (continued)
Arithmetic operations performed with the expr,
declare, and let commands
Value of a variable may be modified using a variable
substitution operator
Flow of a program may be modified using one of
several control structures
if, case
while, until, for
continue, break
&&, || operators
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Summary (continued)
You can create reusable subroutines within shell
scripts called functions
getopts command
May be used within a shell script to obtain the options
specified on the command line
Most common Linux commands used within a shell
script include:
cat, cut, date, echo, grep, egrep, sed, test, and tr
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