Level Up On Shell Scripting

15 Oct 2014 | #unix #shell #scripting #bash #posix

I recently decided to replace myself with a bunch of small shell scripts in as many tedious daily routine tasks as I can. But knowing how rusty my scripting skills were I decided to refresh my knowledge a little bit.

Here is advice, resources and tools I found useful on this journey:

• Try writing portable scripts.
• Forget Bash, understand what POSIX shell is.
• Watch the Shell Haters Handbook video.
• Use this POSIX Reference.
• Dash as /bin/sh is a useful collection of portability challenges.
• Install ShellCheck (brew install shellcheck when using HomeBrew).
• Add ShellCheck to your editor (automagically works when using Vim+Syntastic).
• Write tests to verify your scripts. Roundup is a simple and useful test runner, check this page out for a more thorough overview of the options.

And what’s next once we mastered shell scripting? Maybe learn AWK…