Book Image

Learning Linux Shell Scripting - Second Edition

By : Ganesh Sanjiv Naik
Book Image

Learning Linux Shell Scripting - Second Edition

By: Ganesh Sanjiv Naik

Overview of this book

Linux is the most powerful and universally adopted OS. Shell is a program that gives the user direct interaction with the operating system. Scripts are collections of commands that are stored in a file. The shell reads this file and acts on commands as if they were typed on the keyboard. Learning Linux Shell Scripting covers Bash, GNU Bourne Again Shell, preparing you to work in the exciting world of Linux shell scripting. CentOS is a popular rpm-based stable and secured Linux distribution. Therefore, we have used CentOS distribution instead of Ubuntu distribution. Linux Shell Scripting is independent of Linux distributions, but we have covered both types of distros. We start with an introduction to the Shell environment and basic commands used. Next, we explore process management in Linux OS, real-world essentials such as debugging and perform Shell arithmetic fluently. You'll then take a step ahead and learn new and advanced topics in Shell scripting, such as decision making, starting up a system, and customizing a Linux environment. You will also learn about grep, stream editor, and AWK, which are very powerful text filters and editors. Finally, you'll get to grips with taking backup, using other language scripts in Shell Scripts as well as automating database administration tasks for MySQL and Oracle. By the end of this book, you will be able to confidently use your own shell scripts in the real world.
Table of Contents (17 chapters)

Creating a library of functions

If we want to create our own library of functions, then we can create a script and add all the functions into this script. We can make all the functions from our script functions.sh available in the current shell by calling source or the period . command.

The procedure to load all functions into the current shell is as follows:

    $ country USA
  

Since the country function is not a part of the shell environment, this command will give an error:

    $ . functions.sh
  

Or it could display this one:

    $ source functions.sh
    $ country USA India Japan
  

This will execute the country function along with the parameter, USA India Japan.

We can even load a script containing library functions inside another script as follows:

#!/bin/bash 
. /../my-libray.sh 
call_library_functions(); 

We have called the library function script my-library.sh inside...