Making a small script

Here is what id like to do.

I have a text file and in it i keep commands that i use often. Each of the commands typically has a variable to it .. i.e the MAC addy

I have multiple routers so everytime i switch to another one i need to copy in the mac for each command. Thats like 20 different times i need to paste each MAC

How would i write a small script that would ask me for variableA, VariableB etc... and then paste my input into the text file where i put [VariableA] .. [VariableB] .. then save

Yes i have different docs saved with the separate mac so honestly this is rather pointless but im more or less using it as a learning experience. Then hopefully using that knowledge to make a couple automated tools so if you also know how to run a command as a separate process ... or wait for a command to finish before executing another one that would be a big help

Before you go yelling at me about searching .. yes i have for well over an hour ... but i think im searching for the wrong thing

Thank You

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yes i have for well over an hour

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A whole hour! wow. First of all you need to decide on a script language to use. The default shell language is bash so searching for some things like......

bash , script, tutorial , variable, noob


Will probably get you some results.

Way back when I started playing around with Linux, I learned early on that you look at someone else's scripts, see how they're doing it, and then mess around with it.

I'm sure if you try real hard, you can find a bash script that takes variables as inputs and does something with them.

As Yoda said, there is no 'try' only 'do'.

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Before you go yelling at me about searching .. yes i have for well over an hour ... but i think im searching for the wrong thing

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Your search button must be broken.

Google for the terms: bash script user input variable

The first hit had the info you are looking for.

google
search term: learn bash
return value line 2:
http://www.w3reference.com/bashprogramming.html

or buy a book

As sure as eggs are eggs you shouldn't be using backtrack!

http://tldp.org/LDP/Bash-Beginners-G...ners-Guide.pdf

http://tldp.org/LDP/abs/abs-guide.pdf

http://www.ibiblio.org/pub/Linux/doc...ntro-HOWTO.pdf

Yep, they were tough to find.

bash +pdf first three hits.

Assume the following is the content of test.sh (and that test.sh is executable, in your path, etc):

Code:

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#/bin/bash

mac=$1

echo $mac

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So now if you run test.sh as:

Code:

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test.sh somestringlikeamacaddress

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The echo command is passed the string you specified on the commandline for test.sh and is echoed to the screen (so you should see "somestringlikeamacaddress" on a blank line). Obviously you would use any command and variable sequence etc (this was just a quick example).

$0 is the name of the script/command being run (handy if you add a parameter check and usage screen).
$1 is the first variable, $2 the second etc.
Of course you can get really complicated and do parameter name/value pairs (i.e.: test.sh mac=somestringlikeamacaddress) on the script commandline and then parse them in any order (so that the user doesn't have to memorize order etc) but that's probably overkill for you.

The first search result from Googling "script linux" is listed below, which was the first search I tried after reading your initial post. I was trying to see if I could find useful information without the use of specific terms which a beginner to Linux may not know, such as "bash" and "shell". Looks quite comprehensive. Don't know how you managed to search for an hour without finding something useful...

http://www.freeos.com/guides/lsst/