Creating Bash Scripts Easy Automation And Handy Script – Part 5

The backup script we looked at previously can be further amended to incorporate choices, user-interaction with regards to where the backup file will be copied to and so on. Automating tasks is one of the main benefits of Bash scripting, a simple script can help you out in many ways.

Entering line after line of commands to retrieve system information, find a file or rename a batch of files? A script is a better answer.

Step 1

Let’s start by creating a script to help display the Mint system information; always a handy thing

to have. Create a new script called sysinfo.sh and enter the following into Xed, or the text editor of your choice.

Step 2

We’ve included a couple of extra commands in this script. The first is the -e extension for echo, this means it’ll enable echo interpretation of additional instances of a new line, as well as other special characters. The proceeding ‘31;43m’ element enables colour for foreground and background.

Step 3

Each of the sections runs a different Terminal command, outputting the results under the appropriate heading. You can include a lot more, such as the current aliases being used in the system, the current time and date and so on. Plus, you could also pipe all that information into a handy HTML file, ready to be viewed in a browser.

Step 4

Although there are simple Terminal commands to help you look for a particular file or folder, it’s often more fun to create a script to help you. Plus, you can use that script for other non-technical users. Create a new script called look4.sh, entering the content from the screenshot below.

Step 5

When executed the script waits for input from the user, in this case the file extension, such as jpg, mp4 and so on. It’s not very friendly though. Let’s make it a little friendlier. Add an echo, with: echo -n “Please enter the extension of the file you’re looking for: “, just before the read command.

Step 6

Here’s an interesting, fun kind of script using the app espeak. Install espeak with sudo apt-get install espeak, then enter the text below into a new script called speak.sh. As you can see it’s a rehash of the first greeting script we ran. Only this time, it uses the variables in the espeak output.

Step 7

We briefly looked at putting some colours in the output for our scripts. Whilst it’s too long to dig a little deeper into the colour options, here’s a script that outputs what’s available. Create a new script called colours.sh and enter the text (see below) into it.

Step 8

The output from colours.sh can, of course, be mixed together, bringing different effects depending on what you want to the output to say. For example, white text in a red background flashing (or blinking). Sadly the blinking effect doesn’t work on all Terminals, so you may need to change to a different Terminal.

Step 9

Whilst we’re on making fancy scripts, how about using Zenity to output a graphical interface? Enter what you see below into a new script, mmenu.sh. Make it executable and then run it. You should have a couple of dialogue boxes appear, followed by a final message.

Step 10

While gaming in a Bash script isn’t something that’s often touched upon, it is entirely possible, albeit, a little basic. If you fancy playing a game, enter wget http://bruxy.regnet.cz/linux/housenka/housenka.sh,

make the script executable and run it. It’s in Polish, written by Martin Bruchanov but we’re sure you can modify it. Hint: the title screen is in Base64.

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