Today I tried to use batch code on my Mac, and it was a bit of a mess. I’m used to Windows where you can easily whip up a .bat file, but it’s different on a Mac.
First, I tried to write a simple batch script, just like I do on Windows. I opened up Notepad, typed in some commands, and saved it as a .bat file. But guess what? It didn’t work. Mac doesn’t recognize .bat files. I felt a little dumb, to be honest. How could I miss that?
Looking for Solutions
Then I started to search online. I found out that Mac uses something called “shell scripts” instead of batch files. I saw some people talking about Apple Script, but that seemed like a whole different beast. I just wanted something simple.
After some more searching, I figured out how to write a basic shell script. You just write your commands in a text file and save it with a .sh extension. Easy enough, right?
Making It Executable
But there was another step. I had to make the script executable. I learned that you do this in the Terminal using the “chmod” command. I typed chmod +x followed by the name of my script. It felt a bit complicated at first, but I got the hang of it.
Running the Script
Finally, I was ready to run my script. There were a couple of ways to do it. I could either type the full path to the script in the Terminal or just navigate to the directory where it was located and type ./ followed by the script’s name. I tried both, and they worked! It was such a relief to see it actually running.
A Bit of a Learning Curve
So, yeah, it took me a while to figure out how to use batch code on a Mac. It’s definitely not as straightforward as on Windows. But now that I know the basics, I feel more confident. There were a lot of pauses and restarts because I was getting error messages, but I kept trying different things until I got it right.
- Write the script in a text editor.
- Save it with a .sh extension.
- Make it executable with chmod +x.
- Run it from the Terminal.
It wasn’t the smoothest process, but I learned a lot. It’s funny how different operating systems can be. One thing’s for sure, I won’t be forgetting about shell scripts anytime soon! It was a bit frustrating at times, but I’m glad I stuck with it and figured it out in the end.
