Getting started

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Introduction

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This is a quick reference to getting started with Bash scripting.

• Learn bash in y minutes (learnxinyminutes.com)
• Bash Guide (mywiki.wooledge.org)

Example

#!/usr/bin/env bash

NAME="John"
echo "Hello $NAME!"

Variables

NAME="John"
echo $NAME
echo "$NAME"
echo "${NAME}!"

String quotes

NAME="John"
echo "Hi $NAME"  #=> Hi John
echo 'Hi $NAME'  #=> Hi $NAME

Shell execution

echo "I'm in $(pwd)"
echo "I'm in `pwd`"
# Same

See Command substitution

Conditional execution

git commit && git push
git commit || echo "Commit failed"

Functions

{: id=‘functions-example’}

get_name() {
  echo "John"
}

echo "You are $(get_name)"

See: Functions

Conditionals

{: id=‘conditionals-example’}

if [[ -z "$string" ]]; then
  echo "String is empty"
elif [[ -n "$string" ]]; then
  echo "String is not empty"
fi

See: Conditionals

Strict mode

set -euo pipefail
IFS=$'\n\t'

See: Unofficial bash strict mode

Brace expansion

echo {A,B}.js

Expression	Description
{A,B}	Same as A B
{A,B}.js	Same as A.js B.js
{1..5}	Same as 1 2 3 4 5

See: Brace expansion

Parameter expansions

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Basics

name="John"
echo ${name}
echo ${name/J/j}    #=> "john" (substitution)
echo ${name:0:2}    #=> "Jo" (slicing)
echo ${name::2}     #=> "Jo" (slicing)
echo ${name::-1}    #=> "Joh" (slicing)
echo ${name:(-1)}   #=> "n" (slicing from right)
echo ${name:(-2):1} #=> "h" (slicing from right)
echo ${food:-Cake}  #=> $food or "Cake"

length=2
echo ${name:0:length}  #=> "Jo"

See: Parameter expansion

STR="/path/to/foo.cpp"
echo ${STR%.cpp}    # /path/to/foo
echo ${STR%.cpp}.o  # /path/to/foo.o
echo ${STR%/*}      # /path/to

echo ${STR##*.}     # cpp (extension)
echo ${STR##*/}     # foo.cpp (basepath)

echo ${STR#*/}      # path/to/foo.cpp
echo ${STR##*/}     # foo.cpp

echo ${STR/foo/bar} # /path/to/bar.cpp

STR="Hello world"
echo ${STR:6:5}   # "world"
echo ${STR: -5:5}  # "world"

SRC="/path/to/foo.cpp"
BASE=${SRC##*/}   #=> "foo.cpp" (basepath)
DIR=${SRC%$BASE}  #=> "/path/to/" (dirpath)

Substitution

Code	Description
${FOO%suffix}	Remove suffix
${FOO#prefix}	Remove prefix
—	—
${FOO%%suffix}	Remove long suffix
${FOO##prefix}	Remove long prefix
—	—
${FOO/from/to}	Replace first match
${FOO//from/to}	Replace all
—	—
${FOO/%from/to}	Replace suffix
${FOO/#from/to}	Replace prefix

Comments

# Single line comment

: '
This is a
multi line
comment
'

Substrings

Expression	Description
${FOO:0:3}	Substring (position, length)
${FOO:(-3):3}	Substring from the right

Length

Expression	Description
${#FOO}	Length of $FOO

Manipulation

STR="HELLO WORLD!"
echo ${STR,}   #=> "hELLO WORLD!" (lowercase 1st letter)
echo ${STR,,}  #=> "hello world!" (all lowercase)

STR="hello world!"
echo ${STR^}   #=> "Hello world!" (uppercase 1st letter)
echo ${STR^^}  #=> "HELLO WORLD!" (all uppercase)

Default values

Expression	Description
${FOO:-val}	$FOO, or val if unset (or null)
${FOO:=val}	Set $FOO to val if unset (or null)
${FOO:+val}	val if $FOO is set (and not null)
${FOO:?message}	Show error message and exit if $FOO is unset (or null)

Omitting the : removes the (non)nullity checks, e.g. ${FOO-val} expands to val if unset otherwise $FOO.

Loops

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Basic for loop

for i in /etc/rc.*; do
  echo $i
done

C-like for loop

for ((i = 0 ; i < 100 ; i++)); do
  echo $i
done

Ranges

for i in {1..5}; do
    echo "Welcome $i"
done

With step size

for i in {5..50..5}; do
    echo "Welcome $i"
done

Reading lines

cat file.txt | while read line; do
  echo $line
done

Forever

while true; do
  ···
done

Functions

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Defining functions

myfunc() {
    echo "hello $1"
}

# Same as above (alternate syntax)
function myfunc() {
    echo "hello $1"
}

myfunc "John"

Returning values

myfunc() {
    local myresult='some value'
    echo $myresult
}

result="$(myfunc)"

Raising errors

myfunc() {
  return 1
}

if myfunc; then
  echo "success"
else
  echo "failure"
fi

Arguments

Expression	Description
$#	Number of arguments
$*	All positional arguments (as a single word)
$@	All positional arguments (as separate strings)
$1	First argument
$_	Last argument of the previous command

Note: $@ and $* must be quoted in order to perform as described.
Otherwise, they do exactly the same thing (arguments as separate strings).

See Special parameters.

Conditionals

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Conditions

Note that [[ is actually a command/program that returns either 0 (true) or 1 (false). Any program that obeys the same logic (like all base utils, such as grep(1) or ping(1)) can be used as condition, see examples.

Condition	Description
[[ -z STRING ]]	Empty string
[[ -n STRING ]]	Not empty string
[[ STRING == STRING ]]	Equal
[[ STRING != STRING ]]	Not Equal
—	—
[[ NUM -eq NUM ]]	Equal
[[ NUM -ne NUM ]]	Not equal
[[ NUM -lt NUM ]]	Less than
[[ NUM -le NUM ]]	Less than or equal
[[ NUM -gt NUM ]]	Greater than
[[ NUM -ge NUM ]]	Greater than or equal
—	—
[[ STRING =~ STRING ]]	Regexp
—	—
(( NUM < NUM ))	Numeric conditions

More conditions

Condition	Description
[[ -o noclobber ]]	If OPTIONNAME is enabled
—	—
[[ ! EXPR ]]	Not
[[ X && Y ]]	And
`[[ X

File conditions

Condition	Description
[[ -e FILE ]]	Exists
[[ -r FILE ]]	Readable
[[ -h FILE ]]	Symlink
[[ -d FILE ]]	Directory
[[ -w FILE ]]	Writable
[[ -s FILE ]]	Size is > 0 bytes
[[ -f FILE ]]	File
[[ -x FILE ]]	Executable
—	—
[[ FILE1 -nt FILE2 ]]	1 is more recent than 2
[[ FILE1 -ot FILE2 ]]	2 is more recent than 1
[[ FILE1 -ef FILE2 ]]	Same files

Example

# String
if [[ -z "$string" ]]; then
  echo "String is empty"
elif [[ -n "$string" ]]; then
  echo "String is not empty"
else
  echo "This never happens"
fi

# Combinations
if [[ X && Y ]]; then
  ...
fi

# Equal
if [[ "$A" == "$B" ]]

# Regex
if [[ "A" =~ . ]]

if (( $a < $b )); then
   echo "$a is smaller than $b"
fi

if [[ -e "file.txt" ]]; then
  echo "file exists"
fi

Arrays

Defining arrays

Fruits=('Apple' 'Banana' 'Orange')

Fruits[0]="Apple"
Fruits[1]="Banana"
Fruits[2]="Orange"

Working with arrays

echo ${Fruits[0]}           # Element #0
echo ${Fruits[-1]}          # Last element
echo ${Fruits[@]}           # All elements, space-separated
echo ${#Fruits[@]}          # Number of elements
echo ${#Fruits}             # String length of the 1st element
echo ${#Fruits[3]}          # String length of the Nth element
echo ${Fruits[@]:3:2}       # Range (from position 3, length 2)
echo ${!Fruits[@]}          # Keys of all elements, space-separated

Operations

Fruits=("${Fruits[@]}" "Watermelon")    # Push
Fruits+=('Watermelon')                  # Also Push
Fruits=( ${Fruits[@]/Ap*/} )            # Remove by regex match
unset Fruits[2]                         # Remove one item
Fruits=("${Fruits[@]}")                 # Duplicate
Fruits=("${Fruits[@]}" "${Veggies[@]}") # Concatenate
lines=(`cat "logfile"`)                 # Read from file

Iteration

for i in "${arrayName[@]}"; do
  echo $i
done

Dictionaries

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Defining

declare -A sounds

sounds[dog]="bark"
sounds[cow]="moo"
sounds[bird]="tweet"
sounds[wolf]="howl"

Declares sound as a Dictionary object (aka associative array).

Working with dictionaries

echo ${sounds[dog]} # Dog's sound
echo ${sounds[@]}   # All values
echo ${!sounds[@]}  # All keys
echo ${#sounds[@]}  # Number of elements
unset sounds[dog]   # Delete dog

Iteration

Iterate over values

for val in "${sounds[@]}"; do
  echo $val
done

Iterate over keys

for key in "${!sounds[@]}"; do
  echo $key
done

Options

Options

set -o noclobber  # Avoid overlay files (echo "hi" > foo)
set -o errexit    # Used to exit upon error, avoiding cascading errors
set -o pipefail   # Unveils hidden failures
set -o nounset    # Exposes unset variables

Glob options

shopt -s nullglob    # Non-matching globs are removed  ('*.foo' => '')
shopt -s failglob    # Non-matching globs throw errors
shopt -s nocaseglob  # Case insensitive globs
shopt -s dotglob     # Wildcards match dotfiles ("*.sh" => ".foo.sh")
shopt -s globstar    # Allow ** for recursive matches ('lib/**/*.rb' => 'lib/a/b/c.rb')

Set GLOBIGNORE as a colon-separated list of patterns to be removed from glob
matches.

History

Commands

Command	Description
history	Show history
shopt -s histverify	Don’t execute expanded result immediately

Expansions

Expression	Description
!$	Expand last parameter of most recent command
!*	Expand all parameters of most recent command
!-n	Expand nth most recent command
!n	Expand nth command in history
!<command>	Expand most recent invocation of command <command>

Operations

Code	Description
!!	Execute last command again
!!:s/<FROM>/<TO>/	Replace first occurrence of <FROM> to <TO> in most recent command
!!:gs/<FROM>/<TO>/	Replace all occurrences of <FROM> to <TO> in most recent command
!$:t	Expand only basename from last parameter of most recent command
!$:h	Expand only directory from last parameter of most recent command

!! and !$ can be replaced with any valid expansion.

Slices

Code	Description
!!:n	Expand only nth token from most recent command (command is 0; first argument is 1)
!^	Expand first argument from most recent command
!$	Expand last token from most recent command
!!:n-m	Expand range of tokens from most recent command
!!:n-$	Expand nth token to last from most recent command

!! can be replaced with any valid expansion i.e. !cat, !-2, !42, etc.

Miscellaneous

Numeric calculations

$((a + 200))      # Add 200 to $a

$(($RANDOM%200))  # Random number 0..199

Subshells

(cd somedir; echo "I'm now in $PWD")
pwd # still in first directory

Redirection

python hello.py > output.txt   # stdout to (file)
python hello.py >> output.txt  # stdout to (file), append
python hello.py 2> error.log   # stderr to (file)
python hello.py 2>&1           # stderr to stdout
python hello.py 2>/dev/null    # stderr to (null)
python hello.py &>/dev/null    # stdout and stderr to (null)

python hello.py < foo.txt      # feed foo.txt to stdin for python
diff <(ls -r) <(ls)            # Compare two stdout without files

Inspecting commands

command -V cd
#=> "cd is a function/alias/whatever"

Trap errors

trap 'echo Error at about $LINENO' ERR

or

traperr() {
  echo "ERROR: ${BASH_SOURCE[1]} at about ${BASH_LINENO[0]}"
}

set -o errtrace
trap traperr ERR

Case/switch

case "$1" in
  start | up)
    vagrant up
    ;;

  *)
    echo "Usage: $0 {start|stop|ssh}"
    ;;
esac

Source relative

source "${0%/*}/../share/foo.sh"

printf

printf "Hello %s, I'm %s" Sven Olga
#=> "Hello Sven, I'm Olga

printf "1 + 1 = %d" 2
#=> "1 + 1 = 2"

printf "This is how you print a float: %f" 2
#=> "This is how you print a float: 2.000000"

Directory of script

DIR="${0%/*}"

Getting options

while [[ "$1" =~ ^- && ! "$1" == "--" ]]; do case $1 in
  -V | --version )
    echo $version
    exit
    ;;
  -s | --string )
    shift; string=$1
    ;;
  -f | --flag )
    flag=1
    ;;
esac; shift; done
if [[ "$1" == '--' ]]; then shift; fi

Heredoc

cat <<END
hello world
END

Reading input

echo -n "Proceed? [y/n]: "
read ans
echo $ans

read -n 1 ans    # Just one character

Special variables

Expression	Description
$?	Exit status of last task
$!	PID of last background task
$$	PID of shell
$0	Filename of the shell script
$_	Last argument of the previous command

See Special parameters.

Go to previous directory

pwd # /home/user/foo
cd bar/
pwd # /home/user/foo/bar
cd -
pwd # /home/user/foo

Check for command’s result

if ping -c 1 google.com; then
  echo "It appears you have a working internet connection"
fi

Grep check

if grep -q 'foo' ~/.bash_history; then
  echo "You appear to have typed 'foo' in the past"
fi

Also see

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• Bash-hackers wiki (bash-hackers.org)
• Shell vars (bash-hackers.org)
• Learn bash in y minutes (learnxinyminutes.com)
• Bash Guide (mywiki.wooledge.org)
• ShellCheck (shellcheck.net)