[NMLUG] Bash Scripting help

[wjl at icecavern.net (Wesley J Landaker)]

On Wednesday, 30 March 2005 13:48, Tim Emerick wrote:
> I've been working on a bash backup script that runs as a cron job. 
> To say it's inelegant is an understatement at best.  I could use some
> advice on structure and output.
>
> 1. Rotating backup sets is tedious if I wanted to add or delete the
> number of sets to retain.  Is there a way to loop using a variable?

Sure, for instance, use a for loop, like:

#!/bin/sh
for ((i=0; i<10; i++)); do
  echo $i
done

> 2. When running as a cron job I get an email after the job has run
> showing output.  The commands that were run are preceded with a '+'. 
> I would like to selectively replace them with something more
> descriptive using echo.

#!/bin/sh
instead of
#!/bin/sh -x

Then only output (writing to stdout/stderr, e.g. via echo) what you want 
to see in the cron report.

> 3. I'm using date to give me a start and stop time but I would also
> like a total time that the script took to run.

e.g.

START_TIME=`date +%s`
# do stuff here
STOP_TIME=`date +%s`
DURATION=$((STOP_TIME-START_TIME))
echo Took $DURATION seconds


Have fun! =)

-- 
Wesley J. Landaker <wjl@icecavern.net>
OpenPGP FP: 4135 2A3B 4726 ACC5 9094  0097 F0A9 8A4C 4CD6 E3D2

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