Bash Scripting Essentials

Brace Expansion
chown root /usr/{ucb/{ex,edit},lib/{ex?.?*,how_ex}}

Special Variables
$? Exit value of last executed command.
pid=$!
wait $pid

$! Process number of last background command.
$0 First word; that is, the command name. This will have the full pathname if it was found via a PATH search.
$n Individual arguments on command line (positional parameters).
$# Number of command-line arguments.

“$*” All arguments on command line as one string (“$1 $2…”). The values are separated by the first character in $IFS.
“$@” All arguments on command line, individually quoted (“$1” “$2” …).

Tests
-n string is not null.
-z string is null, that is, has zero length

Testing for File Characteristics
-d File is a directory
-e File exists
-f File is a regular file
-s File has a size greater than zero
-r, -w, -x, -s - socket

[ -d "$dir" ] && echo "$dir exists." || echo "$dir doesn't exists."

Testing with Pattern Matches
== pattern
=~ ere
if [[ "${MYFILENAME}" == *.jpg ]]

-a, &&
-o, ||

if [ ! -d $param ]
if [ $? -ne 0 ]

Parsing
HEAP_DUMP_DIR=$(sed 's/-XX:HeapDumpPath=\([^ ]*\)/\1/' <<< $param)

Function
Use variable $1, $2..$n to access argument passed to the function.
Hello () {
   echo "Hello $1 $2"
   return 10
}
Return value in bash
echo in the function, capture the result in caller $()

Hello a b

for i in $( command ); do command $i; done

for i in $( command ); do
  command $i
done
if [ "$var" == "value" ];  then

else
fi

Google Shell Style Guide
quote your variables; prefer "${var}" over "$var",
Use $(command) instead of backticks.

[[ ... ]] is preferred over [, test

- [[ ... ]] reduces errors as no pathname expansion or word splitting takes place between [[ and ]] and [[ ... ]] allows for regular expression matching where [ ... ] does not




Use readonly or declare -r to ensure they're read only.

Make variable readonly: readonly var=value

Make function readonly: readonly -f function

readonly -p/-f

if [[ -f ~/.bashrc ]]; then

   source ~/.bashrc

fi

[ ! -f $FILE ] && { echo "$FILE not found"; exit -1; }

$(( $a+$b )) to execute arithmetic expressions

Put ; do and ; then on the same line as the while, for or if.

Prefer brace-quoting all other variables.

Use "$@" unless you have a specific reason to use $*.

- "$@" will retain arguments as-is, so no args provided will result in no args being passed on;

- "$*" expands to one argument, with all args joined by (usually) spaces, so no args provided will result in one empty string being passed on.

while IFS=, read var1 var2 var3; do

  ...

done < file.txt

Use Local Variables

local var="something"
local var
var="$(func)" || return

if [[ "${my_var}" = "some_string" ]]; then
  do_something
fi
-z (string length is zero) and -n (string length is not zero)

if ! mv "${file_list}" "${dest_dir}/" ; then

fi

Best Practices
set -euxo pipefail

Use set -o errexit (a.k.a. set -e) to make your script exit when a command fails.

Then add || true to commands that you allow to fail.

set -e - enable exit immediately
set +e - disable exit immediately
set -x  - print a trace Use set -o nounset (a.k.a. set -u) to exit when your script tries to use undeclared variables.
Use set -o xtrace (a.k.a set -x) to trace what gets executed. Useful for debugging.
set -u   Fail for undefined variable (set -o nounset)

Use $(( ... )), not expr for executing arithmetic expressions. which is more forgiving about space

Use (( or let, not $(( when you don't need the result

Identify common problems with shellcheck.

Misc
while true; do some_commands_here; done
while true
do
  some_commands_here
done

Run command until success
until $the_command; do echo "Try again"; done
while [ -n $(the command) ]; do echo "Try again";done;

Related
Essential Linux Commands for Developers