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.