I’ve just written my first program in Linux(Ubuntu) using bash commands. I’d love to give more details about what’s happening and how I’m doing it, but basically I’m following instructions and then playing with the little that I know about it.  I’ll be writing a program in two parts here, basically just as a demonstration of what they do and how they work.

Here’s the first program. Put it into a text file and save it as “testprogram”.

#!/usr/bin/env bash
# A simple command in a shell script
name=”COMPUTER”
printf “Hello, world!\n”
printf “My name is \n”
printf “${name}! \n”
printf “What’s your name? \n”
read user_name
printf “I didn’t get that, is your name $name? \n”
read confirm
printf “What’s your name again? \n”
read user_name2
while [ $user_name = $user_name2 ]
do
printf “I heard your name is $user_name! No need to SHOUT!\n”
done

After doing that, navigate using “cd” and “ls” to the appropriate directory that you saved “testprogram” to.
Now, enter the command, this is the second part:

chmod a+rx testprogram

This will make the program “testprogram”, for All users (a), Readable and eXecutable (+rx).
You may now run the file by entering:

./testprogram

The program will produce the following output:

Hello World!
My name is COMPUTER!
What’s your name?
-prompt1-
I didn’t get that, is your name <returns prompt>?
-prompt2, irrelevant what you say here, yes, your name again, etc.-
What’s your name again?
-prompt3-
If your name in the first prompt is exactly the same as that of the third, it will scream:
I heard your name is <return prompt 1>! No need to SHOUT!
        It will repeat this until the program is terminated by the user.

I’m really pumped about this. This is part of my ongoing work at completing my dissertation (I need to make a standalone script to start the programs I want and pass arguments to it), as well as getting me to be a more useful part of the universe, so I’m always excited to get things done.