Run commands from Shell Script

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We can run any command from shell scripts. We can get the output of the commands in a variable and run commands in loops with different parameters as well. The shell script is a file with file extension "sh".

  1. Add shebang construct
  2. Add commands
  3. Complete code
  4. Add execution permission
  5. Run shell script
  6. Define a variable
  7. Get Input
  8. Define a loop

1. Add shebang construct

Add a shebang construct so that the UNIX system knows that it is a shell script.

#!/bin/bash 
OR
#!/bin/sh

2. Add commands

We can add any command in the shell script and it will be executed one by one. For example, we need add two commands:

pip install numpy
python code.py
ls

On this, once the first command "pip install numpy" completes, then only the second command "python code.py" starts executing.

The command "ls" executes after the first two commands.

3. Complete code

The complete code is as follows:

#!/bin/bash 

pip install numpy
python code.py
ls

4. Add execution permission

Add permission to execute the code

chmod +x commands.sh

5. Run shell script

Run the script code file

bash commands.sh

6. Define a variable

We can define a variable in a shell script as follows:

MESSAGE = "This is a variable"
echo $MESSAGE

7. Get Input

To get input from user, we can use "read".

echo "Enter a number between 1 and 10"
#reading input 
read NUMBER

echo $NUMBER

To get input from output of a command:

PW_DIR=$(pwd)

8. Define a loop

We can define a loop as follows:

a=0
while [ "$a" -lt 10 ] 
    echo $a
done

This will run for values of a = 0 to 9 (both inclusive).

With a loop, you can run a command with different parameters.

With this, you must have a good idea of how to run UNIX commands from shell scripts.

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