Alright, so you wanna make one of them bash thingies do somethin’, huh? Like, make it run when you tell it to? Well, listen up, ’cause it ain’t rocket science, but you gotta do it right.
First off, you gotta have yourself a script. That’s just a bunch of them computer words all lined up in a row, tellin’ the machine what to do. You make that in one of them text files, you know, like the ones you type letters in. But this one’s special. It’s gotta start with this here thing: #!/bin/bash. Don’t ask me why, just stick it at the very top, first thing, before anythin’ else.
- Make sure that first line is there, I’m tellin’ ya, it’s important!
- Write out all them commands, one after the other, just like you’d type ’em in yourself.
- Save the file, give it a name, somethin’ you’ll remember. Like “*” or “*”. The “.sh” part, that’s important too, tells the computer it’s a script.
Okay, now you got your script. But it ain’t gonna do nothin’ yet. It’s like a car without the keys. You gotta give it what they call “permission” to run. Think of it like givin’ it the okay to start its engine.
To do that, you gotta open up that black screen thing, the “terminal” they call it. Don’t be scared, it ain’t gonna bite. Then you gotta type in some words. First, you gotta type chmod +x. That’s like sayin’ “Hey computer, make this thing runnable!”. Then you gotta type the name of your script, like “*”. So it’ll look somethin’ like this: chmod +x *. Then you hit that “enter” key, the big one on the right.
That’s it! You gave it the permission. Now you can run it. To do that, you gotta type and then the name of your script again. So, . And bam! It’ll do all them things you told it to in that file.
Now, sometimes you want that thing to keep runnin’, over and over, like a clock tickin’. You know, just keep doin’ its thing. For that, you gotta use somethin’ called a “loop”. It’s like tellin’ it “do this, then go back and do it again, and again, and again”. It’s a bit more complicated, but not too bad.
You gotta put somethin’ called a “while” in there. And then you gotta put somethin’ that’s always true, like “true” itself. So it’ll look somethin’ like this:
while true; do
# Your commands go here
sleep 1
done
See? It says “while true”, which means it’ll just keep goin’. Then you put all your commands in there, between the “do” and the “done”. And that “sleep 1” thing, that’s just to make it pause for a second, so it ain’t runnin’ like crazy and eatin’ up all your computer power. You can change the number to make it pause longer or shorter.
So, that’s pretty much it. You make your script, you give it permission to run, and then you run it. And if you want it to keep runnin’, you use that “while” thing. Easy peasy, lemon squeezy! Just remember that chmod +x thing, that’s the real key to the whole shebang. And don’t forget to start your script with that #!/bin/bash thing, or it might just sit there like a lump on a log.
And remember, if things go wrong, don’t panic. Just go back and check your script, make sure you typed everything right. Sometimes it’s just a little typo, a missed letter or somethin’. And if you still can’t figure it out, ask someone for help. There’s always someone who knows more than you do, especially when it comes to these computer thingies.
So there you have it, that’s how you make them bash scripts do your biddin’. Go on now, give it a try. And don’t be afraid to experiment. That’s how you learn, by messin’ around and seein’ what happens. Just make sure you save your work before you start messin’ around too much!
Now, I’m gonna go make myself some tea. All this computer talk makes an old woman tired.
Tags: Bash Script, Executable, Linux, Terminal, chmod, While Loop, Scripting, Permissions, Command Line, Automation
