Shell Scripts
Introduction
Aiusha V Hujon
Department of Computer Science
SAC
Shell Scripts
• When a group of commands have to be
executed regularly
– They should be stored in a file
– The file itself executed as a shell script or shell
program
– Not mandatory but .sh can be used
Shell Scripts cont…
• Shell scripts are executed in a separate child
shell process
• This sub shell need not be the same as your
login shell
• By default the child and the parent belong to
the same type
• However you can provide a special
interpretive line in the first line of the script to
specify a different shell for your script
First script
• It runs three echo commands
• The use of variable evaluation
• Command substitution
• Prints the calendar of the year 2010
• Comment character #
• Interpretive line begins with #! Followed by
the path name of the shell to be used for
running the script
First.sh
• #!/bin/sh
• #first.sh sample script
• echo "Today's date is `date`" #command substitution
• echo "This year’s calendar: "
• cal 2021
• echo "My shell is bash”
First script cont…
• first.sh
• To run the script make it executable first
• chmod +x first.sh
• Run the script as ./first.sh
Taking input
• read variablename
• Example
– A script that reads a pattern and a filename and
search whether the pattern exist in the file
– search1.sh
search1.sh
• #!/bin/sh
• #using read
• echo "Enter a file name "
• read fname
• echo "Enter a pattern to be searched "
• read pattern
• echo "Searching $pattern in $fname "
• grep "$pattern" $fname
• echo "End of program"
Taking Input cont...
• A single read statement can be used with one
or more variables
– If the number of arguments supplied < number of
variables accepting them
• Then leftover variables remain unassigned
– If the number of arguments supplied > number of
variables accepting them
• Then remaining words are assigned to the last variable
Using command line arguments
• When arguments are specified with a shell
script, they are assigned to certain special
variables called positional parameters
• The first argument is assigned to $1, the second
to $2 and so on
• $*- stores the complete set of positional
parameters as a single string
• $#- it is set to the number of arguments
specified
Using command line arguments cont...
• $0-holds the command name itself
• Example
– A script that uses command line arguments for a
pattern and a filename and search whether the
pattern exist in the file
– search2.sh
• Arguments can go up to $9
search2.sh
• #!/bin/sh
• echo "Program name is $0"
• echo "The number of arguments specified is
$#"
• echo "The arguments are $*"
• grep "$2" $1
• echo "Program over"
Using command line arguments cont...
• When a multiword string is used as an
argument you must quote it
• ./search2.sh emp.txt “assistant manager”
