Linux Shell Scripting Cookbook - Third Edition

How it works...

Let's write a script that reads input interactively for an automation example:

#!/bin/bash 
# backup.sh 
# Backup files with suffix. Do not backup temp files that start with ~ 
read -p " What folder should be backed up: " folder 
read -p " What type of files should be backed up: " suffix 
find $folder -name "*.$suffix" -a ! -name '~*' -exec cp {} \   
    $BACKUP/$LOGNAME/$folder 
echo "Backed up files from $folder to $BACKUP/$LOGNAME/$folder" 

Let's automate the sending of input to the command:

$ echo -e "notes\ndocx\n" | ./backup.sh 
Backed up files from notes to /BackupDrive/MyName/notes

This style of automating an interactive script can save you a lot of typing during developing and debugging. It also insures that you perform the ...