Just some notes on good practices when shell scripting…
- It is a good idea to comment your code (this is for programming in general).
- Have a header with name of script, author, modification date and parameters being used.
- Variable declaration comments should be on the same line.
- While other comments can be on a separate line.
- Variables should have short, but descriptive names.
- Constants (variables that don’t change) should be upper case.
- Numbers should not be randomly used, they should be linked to constants so they have meaning.
- It is a good idea to follow GNU guidelines for how utilities should operate; for example:
- should have one letter options with one dash (–) and longer options with two dashes (—).
- should have –help and –version option
- –version prints information about the program, such as name and version.
- –help a documentation on how to use the program.
- For commands that take input, output files; input files should be arguments, while output files should given with option -o.
- Split functionality into small functions.
- place #!/bin/bash at top of script.
- Don’t use reserved names such as echo or ls.
- Don’t use same name for functions and variables.
- In if statements place arithmetic between (( )) to not be confused with string comparisons.