Introduction In spite of what we do and how fast we enter the commands, the reality is, we still can’t beat the performance of computers. From the other hand, if we keep repeating the same action multiple times, we can easily give computers a hard time, can’t we? You could write a script (your favorite programming language) and instead of entering the same commands, wasting your time and energy, run the script and have some time for yourself, sit back in a seat, think of the eternity, universe, or anything else that comes up on your mind. bash In the we discussed the principles of programming. Today we will learn how to apply this knowledge in practice. previous article bash Automatization Plan Fast diff Fast + Jira API diff Clean _dist Updating a large number of repositories Cloning a large number of repositories Useful aliases The given plan comprises some of the tasks that I do several times a day (sometimes even an hour) every day. Generally speaking, automatization is a unique and original process that allows automating anything you can think of. Hopefully, by the time you’ll have read this article to the end, you will come up with your own automatization plan on how to surpass your PC performance. So, before we get started, make yourself a cup of hot coffee and enjoy our adventure to the world of automatization with . bash Fast diff Personally, I prefer to use . Creating is a frequent task that requires entering the following command: Git diff git diff origin/master origin/<branch-name> > "${HOME}/diff/diff-<branch-name>.diff" — is the name of the branch for which we need to create <branch-name> diff The disadvantages of the given approach Entering the command is done only manually Risks to mistype the command Not easy to remember If you use , however, these issues can be solved. You should be able to: bash Enter the command Enter the name of the branch Get diff And do all this without a hitch. This is how the end command looks gdd <branch-name> Automatize Now, instead of typing a long command, it’s enough to enter . The script will remind you of inputting the name of the branch in case you forget to do it. ./fast_diff.sh <branch-name> The final touch Coming at this point you may wonder about the end command since using the script as it isn’t exactly convenient, given that we’re still bound to the directory we use. Let’s take a closer look how it’s possible to create a new command for the executive file, not writing a relative/absolute path to it every time. Every user has a subdirectory that stores executive files. If you don’t, you can easily create it. What makes its use so convenient is that all files there can be accessed by name and there’s no need to specify their paths. To this subdirectory I’ve moved file used to create : ~/bin gdd diff #!/bin/bash "${HOME}/htdocs/rybka/tools/fast_diff.sh" "$@" Some important notes: There’s no need to specify a file extension. The attribute should be specified in a clear way ( ) x chmod +x <filename> If you don’t find in variable, you should make it more apparent by typing: . bin $PATH PATH="${PATH}:${HOME}/bin" Relaunch the terminal to make this file accessible. Now, in order to create , you only need to enter the given command: diff gdd <branch-name> If you don’t like an idea of creating a new file for each command, you can optimize this process using a symbolic link: ln -s "${HOME}/htdocs/rybka/tools/fast_diff.sh" gdd Fast diff + Jira API If you use Jira or any other task manager with API, you can go even further. With the help of Jira API, for example, the diff can be assigned to a certain task. To do so, you will need to use . cURL Solution algorithm Run the script Define task id If the task hasn’t been provided, send user a message id Given that all has been done correctly, we generate and assign it to a task diff This is how the end command looks gdd_jira <issue_id> Automatize As you’ve probably noticed, this time we don’t need to pass the name of the branch to the script. We can get it by performing a few simple manipulations with the commands: git branch=$(git rev-parse — abbrev-ref HEAD) Clean _dist Before we go any further let’s see what directory is used for. Simply said, it’s the place where all , , templates ( , , etc) and other files are saved after the launch of build system ( , , etc). The directory doesn’t necessarily have to bear the name. You can find many different variations. _dist CSS JavaScript Jade/Pug Handlebars Grunt Gulp _dist For one of the projects we use Grunt. Quite often, though, our team have encountered with a problem that it doesn’t always seem to see a change in some of the files, files in the majority. To solve this problem, though, you can clean the directory for one or for all themes at once. To do this, you could also use Grunt, cleaning the directory manually, yet, it wouldn’t be same effective as it is with . There are much more directories here, not one or two, not even twenty. There are a lot of them. The main requirement for when working with the script is not to overload it with wrappers and/or dependencies without need. Less _dist bash Let’s see how the same can be done with the power of shell: find <path-to-themes> -type d -name "_dist" | xargs rm -rfv — the path to the directory with the themes <path-to-themes> The disadvantages of the given approach are the same as in the case of the creation. Plus, there’s no option to specify one theme that we’d like to delete directory from. diff _dist Solution algorithm Run the script If you don’t have the name of the theme, you can delete directory for all of them _dist If you have a certain theme name, delete for only this one _dist This is how the end command looks clean_dist [<theme_name>] Automatize Updating a large number of repositories Imagine you work on a big project that contains a directory for third-party repositories which, even though you don’t create them, you still need to support and update. If they are two or three, that might not be a big problem, although, personally I’d not be so confident. But what if you’ve got more than 10–15 repositories to support? You’d need to spend a lot of time tracking them constantly. Why not automatize this process then? Solution algorithm Go to the directory with a repository Check whether a repository is in the branch master If it’s not there, run git checkout Then git pull Even if a repository has switched to branch, there’s still a chance it might be not updated. With that in mind, running ought to be done anyway. An important note. master git pull This is how the end command looks up_repo Automatize Cloning a large number of repositories This process is closely connected to the previous one. To make it possible for a user to use a previous command in practice. I need to provide him/her with a repository of third-party developers adding it into a directory (a user doesn’t necessarily need to be aware of it). On the analogy of , this repository shouldn’t go alongside the main one. All a user should do is execute the command and wait until after the cloning of all repositories is completed. bash/core/vendors npm modules Solution algorithm The list of repositories is set as an array Run the array cycle Pay a particular attention if a vendor has more than one repository Run a few more additional checkups Execute git clone This is how the end command looks clone_repo Automatize Useful aliases I’d like to ask my reader a couple of questions and I’d like you to answer them honestly. How often do you use this command? git branch What about this command? git status And this one? git push origin <branch-name> Do you often use this one? ps aux | grep <user-name> This list can be extended and more likely than not, everyone has got his/her frequently used commands. So, here is where you may suddenly think that for all these commands it’d be a sensible idea to create aliases. In the list below you’ll find some of the aliases that I use on a daily basis: In order to check what aliases have been set, you want to run the command but without specific parameters. alias Where to save aliases To create a permanent alias, add it into file in a user’s home ( ) directory. You could also add it into file for working with . .bashrc ~ .gitconfig git Don’t change aliases late at night Alias is a powerful tool. Yet, here is all as with passwords. Don’t change your aliases when you’re about to go to bed. I did happen to change one late at night. What happened next you can guess. I didn’t remember I’d done it and I spent most part of a day trying to figure out why nothing worked. In conclusion When I just got into the principles of , my first thought was: “Stop, aren’t they what system administrators need?”. Yet, I did understand the importance of this knowledge that would allow me to lighten the burden of daily routine tasks. Today, I can say with confidence that if your work is anyhow related to remote servers or ,or you work with ( , ), the knowledge and understanding of the principles of will come absolutely useful. bash OS *nix Windows OS Bash on Ubuntu on Windows Windows and Ubuntu Interoperability bash Simply put, a script is nothing more than a basic list of system commands, written all in one file. Using this file, though, can simplify executing a lot of routine tasks that otherwise, you’d do manually. Here are a few links with capabilities, some of which I’ve shown in my examples: bash I/O Redirection Functions Arrays The Double-Parentheses Construct Special Characters (pipe) Exit and Exit Status Aliases How to add paths to $PATH variable That’s it. Thanks for your attention and special thanks to those who’ve read the article to the end.
