Intro to Bash Scripting

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Class Description

A six-week course on Saturdays covering basic and intermediate scripting in Bash! This course will teach you all you need to know to begin writing your own scripts. You can use these to automate system administration tasks and write your own custom commands. Scripting will give you use of the full power and flexibility of Bash. The course aims to teach a strong grasp of the basic concepts through practical examples. We will teach these one at a time, with back up exercises and notes for use outside the classroom.

Dates and Time: Saturdays, 1:00 - 3:00pm

May 15, 22, (no class Memorial Day weekend, May 29) June 5, 12, 19, 26

Location: Free Geek Classroom

Cost: $60 for entire series; $30 for Free Geek volunteers!

To register: Send an e-mail to: Laurel (laurel@freegeek.org) and to instructor Paul Munday (paul.munday@gmail.com)

In your email, please include the following:

• Why you want to take the class
• Other classes you have taken at Free Geek
• Your computer experience

Please note: The class is a sequence. Please don't register if you don't think you can attend all 6 classes. There will be more chances to learn Bash at Free Geek -- promise!

Class Tutor

Paul Munday. I've worked as a Linux sysadmin for 12 years as well as an IT trainer focusing on FLOSS.

Class Requirements

No previous programming experience is necessary but you will need to be familiar with use of the command line/terminal (bash shell). If you have taken the basic command line for builders class this should be sufficient.

Class Outline

• Lesson 1: First Steps & Variables. The first lesson covers a basic introduction to scripting: what it is, and how to write one; good scripting style and how to comment your scripts; data & strings; variables --- a first building block for scripts Class Notes
• Lesson 2: Math with Bash & Tests. The second lesson covers doing basic math with bash and introduces control structures, specifically tests (a.k.a conditionals). Class Notes
• Lesson 3 : Loops. More on control structures, specifically loops and how to build basic menus. Class Notes Sample exercises , answers
• Lesson 4 : Arrays and Functions Lesson four covers arrays, a data structure with multiple elements and functions --- a useful way to reuse code and keep it organized. Class Notes Sample exercises
• Lesson 5: Regular Expressions, Sed and Awk. Regular expressions are a handy way to match text strings, combined with sed and awk they provide a powerful way to search and edit large amounts of data. Class Notes
• Lesson 6: Putting it all together. Lesson 6 will walk through the construction of a functional and useful script, step by step, so you can learn how to put them together and how you can use them for systems administration.