Bash Scripting Tutorial – A complete beginner guide (2022)
Published: 2022-11-22 03:26:48

If you’re looking to automate tedious tasks or are simply curious about scripting languages, shell scripting is a powerful tool that can make your life as a developer much easier. In this blog, we’ll cover the basics of shell scripting and how you can use it to streamline your workflow.

## What is Shell Scripting?
Shell scripting or Bash Scripting is a computer programming technique that is used to automate the repetitive and tedious tasks that are commonly performed by users of Unix-based operating systems. The term “shell scripting” can refer to either the Bourne shell, the C, or the Korn shell, which are all Unix shells.

## Why do we use Shell Scripting?
Shell scripts are an extremely powerful tool that can be used to automate a wide variety of tasks. For example, shell scripts can be used to automate system administration, application installation, and data processing.

### Things to keep in mind when writing shell scripts

- The shell is a powerful tool and can be dangerous if used incorrectly. It is important to understand the shell and know how to use it before attempting to write shell scripts.

- Shell scripts are interpreted, not compiled. This means that the shell will execute the commands in the script as they are read. If there are errors in the script, the shell will stop executing the script and print an error message.

- Shell scripts are case-sensitive. This means that the commands in the script must be typed in exactly as they are written in the script.

- Shell scripts can be executed from the command line or they can be executed from a file. To execute a shell script from the command line, type the name of the script and press enter. To execute a shell script from a file, type “sh filename” where the filename is the name of the file containing the script.

## How is shell scripting different from programming language?
While shell scripting is technically a programming language, it is significantly different from traditional programming languages. Shell scripting is primarily focused on automating tasks and providing an easy-to-use interface for common system administration tasks. In contrast, traditional programming languages are designed to be general-purpose and can be used for a wide variety of tasks.

## Some useful resources
### Video Tutorials
- [Shell Scripting Tutorial | Shell Scripting Crash Course | Linux Certification Training | Edureka](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GtovwKDemnI&feature=youtu.be)

It covers essential concepts such as using variables, basic operators, loops & functions. It also enables you to predict how certain real-time scenarios would develop using a virtual machine as a guide.

- [Shell Scripting Tutorials | Simplified](https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL7B7FA4E693D8E790)

You’ll find tutorials on UNIX/Linux Shell Programming in the playlist. The tutorials are specially designed to benefit beginners.

- [Linux For DevOps Engineer | TrainWithShubham](https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLlfy9GnSVerQr-Se9JRE_tZJk3OUoHCkh)

In the playlist, you’ll be learning some Linux commands and shell scripting in an easy manner with some real-time scenarios.

### Documentations
- [Shell Scripting Tutorial | tutorialspoint](https://www.tutorialspoint.com/unix/shell_scripting.htm)

- [Shell Scripting Tutorial | Javatpoint](https://www.javatpoint.com/shell-scripting-tutorial)
- [Shell Scripting Tutorial | shellscript.sh](https://www.shellscript.sh/)

### Online Courses
- [Introduction to scripting in PowerShell | Microsoft](https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/training/modules/script-with-powershell/)

This module introduces you to scripting with PowerShell. This article introduces various concepts that can help you create script files that are robust and effective. It covers topics such as modularization, error handling, and input validation. By understanding these concepts, you can create script files that are more likely to work correctly and avoid potential problems.

- [Shell Scripting | Udemy](https://www.udemy.com/course/shell-scripting-i/)

In this course, you’ll learn UNIX Bash scripting or shell scripting from scratch using simple examples

- [Hands-on Introduction to Linux Commands and Shell Scripting](https://www.coursera.org/learn/hands-on-introduction-to-linux-commands-and-shell-scripting)

This course provides an introduction to Linux and commonly used Linux / UNIX shell commands.
Bash shell scripting is a great way to automate a variety of tasks. This course will teach you the basics of Bash so that you can get started quickly and easily.

## Conclusion

After reading this blog, we can see that shell scripting is a powerful tool that can help us automate many tasks. We can use shell scripts to perform tasks such as file manipulation, text processing, and system administration. We can also use shell scripts to create our own custom commands.