Search icon CANCEL
Subscription
0
Cart icon
Your Cart (0 item)
Close icon
You have no products in your basket yet
Arrow left icon
Explore Products
Best Sellers
New Releases
Books
Videos
Audiobooks
Learning Hub
Free Learning
Arrow right icon
Arrow up icon
GO TO TOP
Linux Shell Scripting Bootcamp

You're reading from   Linux Shell Scripting Bootcamp The fastest way to learn Linux shell scripting

Arrow left icon
Product type Paperback
Published in Jul 2017
Publisher Packt
ISBN-13 9781787281103
Length 208 pages
Edition 1st Edition
Tools
Arrow right icon
Author (1):
Arrow left icon
James K Lewis James K Lewis
Author Profile Icon James K Lewis
James K Lewis
Arrow right icon
View More author details
Toc

Table of Contents (12) Chapters Close

Preface 1. Getting Started with Shell Scripting 2. Working with Variables FREE CHAPTER 3. Using Loops and the sleep Command 4. Creating and Calling Subroutines 5. Creating Interactive Scripts 6. Automating Tasks with Scripts 7. Working with Files 8. Working with wget and curl 9. Debugging Scripts 10. Scripting Best Practices Index

More syntax errors


A fundamental problem with shell scripts is syntax errors don't usually show up until the line with the problem is parsed by the interpreter. Here's a common error that I still find myself doing more than I should. See if you can locate the problem by just reading the script:

Chapter 9 - Script 3

#!/bin/sh
#
# 6/7/2017
#
echo "Chapter 9 - Script 3"

if [ $# -ne 1 ] ; then
 echo "Usage: script3 parameter"
 exit 255
fi

parm=$1
echo "parm: $parm"

if [ "$parm" = "home" ] ; then
 echo "parm is home."
elif if [ "$parm" = "cls" ] ; then
 echo "parm is cls."
elif [ "$parm" = "end" ] ; then
 echo "parm is end."
else
 echo "Unknown parameter: $parm"
fi

echo "End of script3"
exit 0

Here's the output:

Did you find my mistake? When I code an if...elif...else statement, I tend to copy and paste the first if statement. I then prepend elif to the next statement but forget to remove the if. This gets me almost every time.

Look at how I ran this script. I started first with just the name...

lock icon The rest of the chapter is locked
Register for a free Packt account to unlock a world of extra content!
A free Packt account unlocks extra newsletters, articles, discounted offers, and much more. Start advancing your knowledge today.
Unlock this book and the full library FREE for 7 days
Get unlimited access to 7000+ expert-authored eBooks and videos courses covering every tech area you can think of
Renews at $19.99/month. Cancel anytime
Banner background image