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BASH: Command Line#

  • So far, we have used bash to interact with the CLI by typing single line commands

  • To automate repetitive tasks, we can combine those single lines commands to a file called a bash script

  • Typically, I name these scripts using the file format, .sh (shell) or .in (input)

Redirect Commands to a File with EOF#

  • You can redirect command input and output (i.e., stdin, stdout, and stderr) with “redirection operators”

  • Unlike |, which passes the standard output (stdout) to the next command, a redirection operator has a command’s input come from a file or stream, or sends its output to a file or stream

Example: Read from stdin until ^EOF$ and overwrite hello.py with the lines between EOF (which are called a “here document”):

cat > hello.py << EOF
#!/usr/bin/env python
from __future__ import print_function
import sys

print("#stdout", file=sys.stdout)
print("#stderr", file=sys.stderr)

for line in sys.stdin:
    print(line, file=sys.stdout)
EOF

  • Variables will be expanded if the first “EOF” is not quoted

Example: Run the hello.py script with various stdin, stdout, and stderr redirections:

python hello.py < "input.in" # pass input.in as input to the script

python hello.py > "output.out" # redirect output from the script to output.out

python hello.py 2> "error.err" # redirect error output to error.err

python hello.py > "output-and-error.log" 2>&1 # redirect both output and errors to output-and-error.log
# &1 means file descriptor 1 (stdout), so 2>&1 redirects stderr (2) to the current
# destination of stdout (1), which has been redirected to output-and-error.log.

python hello.py > /dev/null 2>&1
# redirect all output and errors to the black hole, /dev/null, i.e., no output

# The output error will overwrite the file if it exists,
# if you want to append instead, use ">>":
python hello.py >> "output.out" 2>> "error.err"

# Overwrite output.out, append to error.err, and count lines:
info bash 'Basic Shell Features' 'Redirections' > output.out 2>> error.err
wc -l output.out error.err

# Run a command and print its file descriptor (e.g. /dev/fd/123)
# see: man fd
echo <(echo "#helloworld")

# Overwrite output.out with "#helloworld":
cat > output.out <(echo "#helloworld")
echo "#helloworld" > output.out
echo "#helloworld" | cat > output.out
echo "#helloworld" | tee output.out >/dev/null

Use Standard Output of Command in a Variable#

  • Commands can be substituted within other commands or used in variables

    • 2 notations can be used:

      1. VAR=`COMMAND`

      2. VAR=$(COMMAND)

  • Both notations declares the variable, VAR, to be the output of some, COMMAND (standard output of whatever command needed)

Personally, I prefer the second notation (2)

It is much easier to read, VAR=$(COMMAND), than closing with the “`”

# Declare variable, VAR, to be the stdout of the command, echo, which prints "Hello World!"
VAR=$(echo "Hello World")
echo $VAR # > Hello World

# Use $VAR from previous, in new variable, N. Pipe stdout to command, tr, which transform spaces " " to new lines "\n"
N=$(echo ${VAR} | awk '{print $2}')
echo $N # > World

Example: Displays the number of files and directories in the current directory.

# ls, list items in directory and pipe the output as input, wc -l, to count total number of lines
echo "There are $(ls | wc -l) items here."

Automating Repetitive Tasks with bash Loops#

  • Suppose you have been doing a repetitive task running the same set of commands for a project

  • For example, you need to create 100 new directories numbered from 0 to 99

    • You would need to run, mkdir 0, mkdir 1,…, all the way to mkdir 99

  • In this case, you can use something called bash loops

    • Loops iterate a set of commands for as many arguments given

      • The command in the previous scenario would be mkdir NUMBER, and arguments would be NUMBER (1 through 99)

Example: for Loops#

# On command line, type each line below and hit enter
mkdir test
cd test
for NUMBER in {1..99}; do # hit enter, NUMBER is the list 1 to 99 
    mkdir -p $NUMBER # yours might not be tabbed, hit enter, to repeat make directory command
done # end for loop, hit enter

  • ls and you should see 100 folders made

  • Cleanup by cd ../; rm -r test

Example: “traditional for loop” way

for ((a=1; a <= 3; a++))
do
    echo $a
done
# => 1
# => 2
# => 3

  • They can also be used to act on files. This will run the command cat on file1 and file2.

for Variable in file1 file2
do
    cat "$Variable"
done

  • or the output from a command, this will cat the output from ls.

for Output in $(ls)
do
    cat "$Output"
done

  • can also accept patterns, like this to cat all the Markdown files in current directory

for Output in ./*.markdown
do
    cat "$Output"
done

Example: while Loops#

while [ true ]
do
    echo "loop body here..."
    break
done
# => loop body here...

Functions#

  • You can also define functions

# Definition:
function foo ()
{
    echo "Arguments work just like script arguments: $@"
    echo "And: $1 $2..."
    echo "This is a function"
    returnValue=0    # Variable values can be returned
    return $returnValue
}
# Call the function `foo` with two arguments, arg1 and arg2:
foo arg1 arg2
# => Arguments work just like script arguments: arg1 arg2
# => And: arg1 arg2...
# => This is a function

  • More than 9 arguments are also possible by using braces, e.g. ${10}, ${11}, ... or simply

bar ()
{
    echo "Another way to declare functions!"
    return 0
}

  • Call the function bar with no arguments:

bar # => Another way to declare functions!

  • Calling your function

foo "My name is" $Name

Adding Choices (Options) to Script with case Statements#

  • Simplify complex conditionals options for multiple different choices

  • Using the case statement instead of nested if statements will help your scripts to be readable and easier to maintain

# General format starts with keyword, case, followed by some, EXPRESSION, i.e. string/variable
case EXPRESSION in

    PATTERN_1)  # some pattern terminated by, ')'
        STATEMENTS # if EXPRESSION == PATTERN_1 do this
    ;; # end 

     PATTERN_2) # different pattern terminated by, ')'
        STATEMENTS # if EXPRESSION == PATTERN_2 do this
    ;; #end

    PATTERN_N) # another pattern
        STATEMENTS 
    ;; #end

    *) # default patter
        STATEMENTS # usually "Usage:"
    ;; # end
esac # Ends with esac keyword (case backwards)

Example: Script Checking File Formats in Current Directory

  • Use vi to make a new script called, fileformat.sh

  • Copy the following lines to the new script using Insert Mode

  • Save the file with :wq

  • Run script by typing bash fileformat.sh in the terminal

#!/bin/bash

# For each item in stdout of, ls, command
for file in $(ls); do
    Extension=${file##*.} # Assign to variable, Extension
    case "$Extension" in
    sh) 
        echo "Shell script: $file"
    ;;
    md) 
        echo "A markdown file: $file"
    ;;
    png) 
        echo "PNG image file: $file"
    ;;
    txt) 
        echo "A text file: $file"
    ;;
    zip) 
        echo "An archive: $file"
    ;;
    conf) 
        echo "A configuration file: $file"
    ;;
    py) 
        echo "A Python script: $file"
    ;;
    *) 
        echo "Unknown file type: $file"
    ;;
    esac
done
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