It is easy to dismiss bash — the typical Linux shell program — as just a command prompt that allows scripting. Bash, however, is a full-blown programming language. I wouldn’t presume to tell you that ...

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Simply put, a Shell Script is a program that is run by a UNIX/Linux shell. It is a file that contains a series of commands which are executed sequentially as if they were entered on the command line ...

Shell scripting can be tricky because there's bash and then there's sh and then again there's ksh. Lots of people think they are writing sh scripts and even put #/bin/sh on the tops of their files, ...

If you're writing a Bash script, you will invariably need to pass values to it—aka arguments or positional parameters. Bash's approach is a little clunky, but it works. Examples are the easiest way to ...

Once a script is prepared and tested, you can get a significant task completed simply by typing the script's name followed by any required arguments. Developing scripts to handle your more complicated ...

Unlock the full InfoQ experience by logging in! Stay updated with your favorite authors and topics, engage with content, and download exclusive resources. Kenneth Harris, a NASA veteran who worked on ...

The printf command offers well-defined behavior following the POSIX standard, which means it works the same way across shells ...

Shell scripting is one of those skills that are absolutely invaluable on especially UNIX and BSD-based systems like the BSDs, the two zillion Linux distributions as well as MacOS. Yet not every shell ...