In this article, I'm going to show you a number of simple, yet highly useful tricks that will make your scripting life easier. True, this article may appeal to the more geeky segment of my readers, but there's no reason to stop reading. As usual, I'll try to make my examples as simple and elegant as possible, with screenshots aplenty.

Scripts are an important part of Linux life. They are not necessary, but they can make your life easier by automating tasks. Most users will get along fine without ever bothering with scripts. But if you're lazy and would like your system to work hard rather than the other way around, learning how to write and use scripts is a good exercise.

BASH stands for Bourne Again SHell, the default Linux shell. If you're wondering what shell is, then think of its an interpreter between you (the user) and the system. You type in commands and the systems translates them into actual work. Most of the time, the results of this work are printed on your screen, inside the terminal.

Writing scripts is BASH can be as simple as entering commands one after another, then pasting them all into a text file that will become a script. Still, there are few tricks that can make a lot of difference.

Let's see them.