Tagged Questions
5
votes
2answers
70 views
Walking through files in directory randomly
How to change for track in *.mp3; do so that all .mp3 files in the current directory are walked through but in a random way?
0
votes
2answers
65 views
How to create as many variables as needed from shell script(bash)?
I'm making a script for monitoring some user processes with Upstart but, since its for the company I work for, they asked me to do it generic...how's so?
Well, the number of processes being monitored ...
5
votes
4answers
141 views
Hybrid code in shell scripts. Sharing variables
This answer discusses how to run a multi-line Python snippet from the command line in a terminal. I noticed that the answer works great within shell scripts, even with nested indentation, which is ...
4
votes
3answers
70 views
CD into directory from HISTORY in a bash script or alias e.g. $(!!)
I often want to change into the directory of a file on my file system, but I'm not sure where the file is.
I search for it like so:
find -type f -name "myfile.txt"
Lets say for the sake of ...
1
vote
0answers
21 views
rsstail Not Printing Output
I've installed rsstail 1.8 on my linux box and everything seems to be going smoothly, knock on wood, except for the part where rsstail isn't printing the streams. Running the command, I see that it's ...
2
votes
1answer
40 views
Bash: pair up two series of files
I have a number of files with this pattern:
file1_foo.ext
file1_bar.ext
file2_foo.ext
file2_bar.ext
and so on.
I need to "pair them" and put them in a file like this
file1_foo.txt ...
1
vote
1answer
117 views
Securely reading and parsing a string from a parameter or file in bash
I've been writing a number of bash scripts lately which get variables from a parameter or from a file. Some of the scripts run as root (using sudo)
This is on my notebook, so there aren't any other ...
3
votes
1answer
95 views
Searching for Failed attemps in /var/log/secure
I'm currently writing a script to examine /var/log/secure file and report how many failed attempts there were that day. I need to output it in the following format:
Date: 03/15/10 Time: 10:30 Number ...
6
votes
5answers
467 views
How can I have more than one possibility in a script's shebang line?
I'm in a bit of an interesting situation where I have a Python script that can theoretically be run by a variety of users with a variety of environments (and PATHs) and on a variety of Linux systems. ...
0
votes
0answers
22 views
How do I comment parts of a multiline command? [duplicate]
In bash command line or scrip invocation, a command could run several liens long. In this case, delimiting the lines with \ is useful.
What I am trying to make work is:
command \
-option1 ...
0
votes
1answer
119 views
ipset not executing from crontab
I have this txt files that contains IPs, one per line of file, that I want to block using ipset.
I have this bash script that essentially reads from the plain txt file and constructs an array. Then ...
2
votes
1answer
107 views
bash scripting add arguments
I have created a script which takes parameters and arguments. I want to insert the --help argument.
I already know how to parse normal arguments with -, but I don't know how to parse the -- ones.
to ...
3
votes
2answers
313 views
Iterate over multiple parameters with spaces in bash script
I have a bash script for my RaspberryPi (running Raspbian) that is supposed to take multiple file names as parameter(s) and play one after the other (using omxplayer). The basic structure is this:
...
2
votes
2answers
417 views
If Statement with 2 Variables - Bash
I am trying to write a single IF statement which can check two variables at once.
I have two variables, for example:
$VARA
$VARB
Both with either contain a 0 or a non 0 value. I need an if ...
24
votes
7answers
1k views
What's the equivalent to && when writing a bash script?
I apologize in advance if this is a duplicate question. I did make an effort to search/check before asking here.
I'm comfortable with writing one-liners like this:
foocommand && ...
4
votes
3answers
109 views
bash -e exits when let or expr evaluates to 0
I have a bash script that sets -e so the script will exit on any exit status != 0.
I'm trying to do some basic shell arithmetic assigned to variables and sometimes the expression equals 0 which ...
3
votes
1answer
76 views
Issue when setting a default path in BASH
I have a BASH scripting question. I'd like the mention that I am new to BASH scripting; however, I am not new to programming. I am developing a simple BASH script to watch a given compass project. My ...
1
vote
2answers
175 views
How to use an optional argument?
I'm writing this script to work as a fast draft. It opens my text editor with date and time, so I can insert some draft text to save quickly.
1. At first I'd like to append the date and time at the ...
3
votes
2answers
233 views
Determining if a host is online
I'm testing stability of a machine and I need way to simply write a Bash script to determine if a host is online or not. How could I script this?
if [ ! $(hostisonline) ]; then
# profit
fi
2
votes
2answers
114 views
Script to choose editor to open file based on the argument
I'd like to run my script fastex with two possible arguments (g or t), like fastex g.
Based on the argument I want to call geany $file or texstudio $file. This is to choose the editor.
I tried
...
1
vote
2answers
299 views
How to correctly concatenate strings in shells script?
I have a bash shell which I need to modify, and I have to set a variable in a script and then call another script. My variable, EXTRA_JAVA_OPTIONS must be
-javaagent:myagent.jar="-d 0 -i 1000 -l log2 ...
2
votes
2answers
263 views
Check whether files in a file list exist in a certain directory
The runtime arguments are as follows: $1 is the path to the file containing the list of files
$2 is the path to the directory containing the files
What I want to do is check that each file listed in ...
0
votes
2answers
78 views
fwui.log error while running this script
I run this bash script in order to put all the files with the following format dated today in the same folder. for example here I want 2012-12-17_083213 to be my folder and then inside it I have the ...
2
votes
1answer
70 views
required output not achieved by bash script
I am new to bash script and want to create bash script that moves some days old files between source and destination as per days defined in script.
#!/bin/bash
echo "Enter Your Source Directory"
...
0
votes
1answer
456 views
Bash script to copy *.log files into a new directory
I have some files like this:
2012-12-17_083213_1.log
2012-12-17_083213_1.log_stats
2012-12-17_083213_1.logaccount_ptr
2012-12-17_083213_1.loginitial_ptr
2012-12-17_083213_1.logptr
...
1
vote
1answer
127 views
What is difference between POSIX and bash and other shell scripts?
While going through many answers on Unix.SE, I come across many of them writing their contents w.r.t to Posix or Bash or some other standard. I know of some differences like some have arrays and some ...
1
vote
1answer
456 views
grep output of expect script
I'm trying to run some expect language, and grep/parse the output all in one script. I want to grep the output of and look for "error" (I should note that standard linux commands like awk, sed, grep, ...
2
votes
1answer
178 views
Trouble in script with spaces in filename
I've got a script that scp's a file from remote host back to local. Sometimes the file names contain spaces. scp does not like spaces in its file names. For some reason my attempts at handling the ...
1
vote
2answers
135 views
How can I find matches with sed (or similar) for configuration parameters?
I'm pretty good at using php's preg_match (and similar) commands, and I'm also pretty good with regular expressions, but I don't do very well with sed.
I have two shell scripts I'm working on and I'd ...
1
vote
2answers
186 views
how do I run a cron job with a specific user?
My cron and scripting skills are very poor, but I need to run a job every 5 minutes by user 'cpc'. So I created a script and left it at /root.
My crontab -e entry about it is:
0-59/5 * * * * ...
1
vote
0answers
111 views
Having problems with script and redirecting input to stdin [closed]
EDIT: found mistake, it was actually bug in my program, I had > instead of >= in my for loop that reads coefficients.
I'm fairly new to linux, and I need help with bash scripting.
I have C program, ...
1
vote
1answer
252 views
Extract binaries from pcap using command line (script)
As the title says, I'm looking for a way to extract binaries from PCAP's using the command line. I realize it is possible using Wireshark -> File -> Export -> http objects etc. But tshark doesn't seem ...
3
votes
0answers
100 views
tab-expansion and “./” bash shell [closed]
Maybe someone here would be able to help me out. Have installed Ubuntu 12.04 LTS (kubuntu) on two machines. The .bashrc and .bash_profile files are identical as the file structures on each machine is ...
2
votes
1answer
139 views
How to capture text formatting in bash?
The following shell script works but removes colored formatting generated by rspec:
#!/bin/bash
OUTPUT=`rspec`
echo "$OUTPUT"
How to preserve the colors?
1
vote
2answers
443 views
Fetch values from plist file on Linux
I have bash script which was written for OS X and now ported to Linux. I don't have access to the Linux box. The bash script would read values from plist files using the defaults read and PlistBuddy ...
1
vote
1answer
348 views
bash script select menu
I've many notes gleaned from the web and have written bash scripts to manage them.
I've some scripts working that depend on select to make menus.
Question: in a nested menu context, is it possible ...
0
votes
1answer
138 views
How to effectively use bash scripting (different cost reductive ways and good habits)? [closed]
This is one of the most perennially important questions. How to effectively script ? What are the bad ways and what are the good ways ? I know of some, which i will point out here. If anybody does ...
1
vote
3answers
1k views
Need a loop to sleep for a fraction of second
On my machine I need to execute a cycle that iterates 1 simple command that must have a delay expressed in fractions of second.
Let's say that I need:
to save a file with an increasing enumaration ...
1
vote
1answer
332 views
How to manage getops argument assignation
This is my first question.
I'm trying to make a small script with options and I'm using getopts to do it. The weird thing is:
The argument don't get assigned to the variable or it always enter the ...
2
votes
1answer
226 views
Download file linked in MySQL DB, extract text and insert into db with bash script?
I want to download a file (only download if the url ends with a certain string), which URL is in a MySQL database, extract the text and write the text to the database, by replacing the url.
And this ...
4
votes
2answers
250 views
Semicolon in conditional structures
Why put semicolons in one and not in another?
The result is the same
Code one
if [ "a" == "a" ]
then
echo "true"
fi
Code two
if [ "a" == "a" ];
then
echo "true";
fi
Semicolons in the second ...
11
votes
3answers
933 views
What does it mean to have a $“dollarsign-prefixed string” in a script?
I just saw this in an init script:
echo $"Stopping Apache"
What is that dollar-sign for?
My research so far:
I found this in the bash manual:
extquote
If set, $'string' and ...
4
votes
3answers
834 views
Check if script is started by cron, rather than invoked manually
Is there any variable that cron set when it's running a program ? If the script is running by cron, I'll skip some parts; otherwise invoke those parts.
How can I know if the bash script is started by ...
3
votes
4answers
454 views
How do you colorize only some keywords for a bash script?
I am running some unit test code. The unit test code outputs regular text. There is a lot of the text so I want to highlight for the user important keywords.
In this case the keywords are "PASS" and ...
5
votes
4answers
3k views
How can I use bash's if test and find commands together?
I have a directory with crash logs, and I'd like to use a conditional statement in a bash script based on a find command.
The log files are stored in this format:
/var/log/crashes/app-2012-08-28.log
...
2
votes
3answers
389 views
Copy/backup all dirs containing files matching a regexp
I would like to do a backup where I recursively go through a dir structure and only get directories with files whose names matching a particular regexp. I would like to keep the directory structure, ...
11
votes
1answer
1k views
Making a progressbar with “dialog” from rsync output
I'm looking for a way to filter/redirect rsync output in a manner where it can be fed to the "dialog --gauge" command, so I can get a nice looking progressbar during file sync.
Currently I have only ...
0
votes
2answers
90 views
HDI script fixed (non-interactive) input in a command-line gui program?
I want to create a simple script that initiates a simple gui-based program (think ncurses-style, text-based graphics in a shell) in Debian. I only access the server through SSH, so I can't do ...
2
votes
1answer
176 views
How to add variables to script output?
A program to calculate statistics outputs its data in this format
Calc_Statistics -input_data
...
5
votes
2answers
231 views
How to parse many variables to bash?
A program outputs its data in this format:
n=4607356
null_cells=5668556
cells=10275912
min=0.0433306089835241
max=0.53108499199152
range=0.487754383007996
mean=0.40320252333736
...
