[ILUG] developerWorks article...

[kevin lyda]

Noel Carroll wrote:
> Talking about bash scripting.  I was reading an article in LJ at the weekend
> that detailed using EX and 'here' files for scripting.  Is this a common
> approach or are there better ways of doing it - like most things on Linux

not personally.  i use sed - i figure it's called a stream editor for a
reason...  the article seemed a bit odd in my mind and i've seen and
written a fair number of shell scripts.

the key to shell scripts is you need to remember they get built in
pieces.  the overall thing might look utterly incomprehensible, but if
you break it down it will make sense.  you read a shell script one way
and c a different way - just like you read a cookbook one way and a
novel another.

> there alwasy seems to be about 5 ways of doing something!   What the hell is
> a 'here' file and is there more to it than just an _EOF_ flag as was
> detailed in the article.

a here file:

cat << EOF
blah
my path is $PATH
moo
EOF

that's pretty much it.

now back to beating a perl script into submission.  (t's actually three
scripts acting together over tcp/ip - three test windows and at least
two edit windows and i have an 800x600 monitor that only allows two
xterms per screen.  AUGH!

kevin
-- 
kevin at suberic.net       "we were goin' for breakfast.  in canada.  we
fork()'ed on 37058400    made a deal: if she'd stop hookin', i'd stop
meatspace place: work    shootin' people.  maybe we were aiming high."
                                                   --porter, "payback"