Bash scripts

Welcome to this tutorial on writing Bash scripts! In this tutorial, you will learn how to create and run your own Bash scripts.

A Bash script is a collection of commands that are stored in a text file and can be executed automatically. Bash scripts are often used to automate tasks, such as installing software, backing up files, or performing system maintenance.

To create a Bash script, you will need a text editor. You can use any text editor that you like, such as nano, vi, or gedit.

Once you have a text editor open, you can start writing your script. The first line of a Bash script should be #!/bin/bash, which tells the system that this is a Bash script.

After the shebang line, you can start writing your commands. Each command should be on a separate line. For example, the following script contains two commands:

#!/bin/bash
echo "Hello,world!"
ls

This script will print “Hello, world!” to the terminal and then list the contents of the current directory.

Once you have finished writing your script, you will need to save it to a file. Give your script a meaningful name, and make sure to include the .sh file extension.

To execute your script, you can use the bash command followed by the name of the script file. For example:

$ bash my_script.sh

You may also need to make the script executable by changing its permissions. You can do this with the chmod command:

$ chmod +x my_script.sh

After making the script executable, you can run it by simply typing its name:

$ ./my_script.sh

Bash scripts can also accept command-line arguments, which are values that are passed to the script when it is run. To access command-line arguments in a script, you can use the $1, $2, $3, etc. variables. For example:

#!/bin/bash
echo "First argument: $1"
echo "Second argument: $2"

You can pass command-line arguments to a script by separating them with spaces when you run the script. For example:

$ bash my_script.sh arg1 arg2

This is just a brief introduction to writing Bash scripts. There are many more features and capabilities available, and you can learn more by reading the Bash documentation or by practicing and experimenting with different commands and scripts.