Brad Morton

Here’s a short article on concatenating (merging) strings in Bash – the right way. Examples included. There are various ways two or more strings could be joined in a shell script. Various programs will accept strings and return them merged/concatenated – but using the side-effect of a programs operation to concatenate strings is a bit of a waste of time, so this article will focus on the simplest, most readable method. Inserting a String into Another A string can be inserted when creating another string … Read more

Math is easy, Bash scripting is easy, so performing math/arithmetic in Bash/Shell scripts should be easy too. It is. Here’s how to do it. Working with Integers Bash’s built-in arithmetic can only handle integer (whole number) values. If you attempt to declare a variable with a non-integer value: declare -i e=2.5 You’ll see the following: bash: declare: 2.5: syntax error: invalid arithmetic operator (error token is “.5”) To work with non-integer numbers, you will need to use an external program to perform your calculations – but first, … Read more

This article will show you how to use variables in Bash and Shell scripts in Linux. Bash (or Linux Shell) scripts are files you write containing commands to automate common tasks and save yourself some time. Variables are things in scripts that hold a value for later use – a number, or a filename, or anything, really. Here’s how to define and use variables in Linux Shell scripts. These examples should work in the most popular Linux Shells, Bash, and Zsh. Declaring Bash Variables Bash VARIABLES ARE UNTYPED … Read more