"Bash programming is a topic that can be dealt with in a couple
of pages or hundreds of pages. Harold Rodriguez explains Bash
programming in this 2 Part tutorial. His slick and excellent style
of writing has enabled him to cover all the essential features of
bash programing in a few pages.
"If you have never programmed in Bash before, this is the best
place to begin. In case you have a little knowledge of bash, then
too you could have a look.. a lot of interesting scripts have been
explained by Harold.
"Introduction
"Like all the shells available in Linux, the Bourne Again SHell
is not only an excellent command line shell, but a scripting
language in itself. Shell scripting, allows you to fully utilize
the shell's abilities and to automate a lot of tasks that would
otherwise require a lot of commands to perform. A lot of programs
lying around your Linux box are shell scripts. If you are
interested in learning how they work, or in modifying them, it is
essential that you understand the bash syntax and semantics. In
addition, by understanding the bash language, you will be able to
write your own programs to do things exactly the way you want them
done.
"Programming or Scripting?
"People who are new to programming are generally confused as to
what the difference is between a programming and scripting
language. Programming languages are generally a lot more powerful
and a lot faster than scripting languages"