## Marking a script as executable Sometimes, you may need to mark a script as an executable to run it. On Linux, this can be accomplished by `chmod +x [FILE]`, where `[FILE]` is the file you want to mark as executable. To unmark a file as executable, use `chmod -x` ## The Shebang There are various shells with their own language syntax (`sh`, `bash`, `fish`, etc). Therefore, more complicated scripts will indicate a particular shell by specifying the absolute path to the interpreter as the first line, prefixed by `#!` like this: ```sh #!/bin/sh echo "Hello, World!" ``` `#!/bin/sh` means that this script can be executed by the binary located at `/bin/sh`, and so the reader knows this is a `sh`(ell) script. ## Variables In bash, variable assignment is done with the `=` operator. Variables are conventionally named with `SCREAMING_SNAKE_CASE`, and can be accessed by prefixing the variable name with a dollar sign (`$`): ```bash #!/bin/bash # There may not be any spaces used during assignment, `A = B` means something different than `A=B` # Assignment is done with the equal sign (=) operator: MY_VARIABLE="Hi Mom!" echo $MY_VARIABLE ``` ## Quotes In Bash, different styles of quotes mean different things: | Quote | Description | | ----------------- | ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- | | Single Quotes (') | Enclosing characters in single quotes (‘'’) preserves the literal value of each character within the quotes. A single quote may not occur between single quotes, even when preceded by a backslash. Commands in single quotes will not be evaluated. | | Double Quotes (") | Enclosing characters in double quotes (‘"’) preserves the literal value of all characters within the quotes, with the exception of ‘$’, ‘`’, ‘\’, and, when history expansion is enabled, ‘!’. When the shell is in POSIX mode (see [Bash POSIX Mode](https://www.gnu.org/software/bash/manual/html_node/Bash-POSIX-Mode.html)), the ‘!’ has no special meaning within double quotes, even when history expansion is enabled. The characters ‘$’ and ‘`’ retain their special meaning within double quotes (see [Shell Expansions](https://www.gnu.org/software/bash/manual/html_node/Shell-Expansions.html)). The backslash retains its special meaning only when followed by one of the following characters: ‘$’, ‘`’, ‘"’, ‘\’, or `newline`. Within double quotes, backslashes that are followed by one of these characters are removed. Backslashes preceding characters without a special meaning are left unmodified. A double quote may be quoted within double quotes by preceding it with a backslash. If enabled, history expansion will be performed unless an ‘!’ appearing in double quotes is escaped using a backslash. The backslash preceding the ‘!’ is not removed. | | | | ## Commands | Command | Description | | ------------- | ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- | | `exit [CODE]` | Make the script process exit, where `[CODE]` is the exit code the process will terminate with. | | | |