write a shell script

Posted on by • Posted in Linux •

To successfully write a shell script, you have to do three things:

  1. Write a script
  2. Give the shell permission to execute it
  3. Put it somewhere the shell can find it

Now, fire up your text editor and type in your first script as follows:

#!/bin/bash
...the script

And after saving you must make it executeable.

sudo chmod +x <path>
sudo chmod 755 <filename>

Note that it is a good idea to put your scripts in one place, so you can run them without requiring a path. If you create a bin directory in your home ( mkdir ~/bin ) the next time you login, that will automatically be included in your PATH.

mkdir ~/bin
chmod 755 ~/bin

Edit : If you want the script to be available to all users, place it in /usr/local/bin and have it owned by root with rx access by others sudo chown root:root /usr/local/bin/your_script ; sudo chmod 655 /usr/local/bin/your_script

gksudo gedit ~/.bashrc

Add the following to the end of .bashrc and save:

if [ -d $HOME/bin ]; then
PATH=$PATH:$HOME/bin
fi