create a shell script with a shell script (mac)

Question

I've been creating mac shell executables with this method:

Create a file;
Add #!/bin/sh;
Add the script;
Run chmod 755 nameofscript.

I now need to create a shell script to create a shell script in another directory and make it executable (with chmod) so that it can be run on startup.

Don't assume /bin/sh is bash. And this very simple to do, but feels a lot like homework, can you post what you've tried? — Reinstate Monica Please
– Reinstate Monica Please, Commented Mar 12, 2014 at 22:58
if you only want the script to be executable without altering the read write permission already defined you can use this command: chmod +x nameofscript. — Lynch
– Lynch, Commented Mar 13, 2014 at 1:00

Peter - Reinstate Monica · Accepted Answer · 2014-03-12 22:25:23Z

2

#!/bin/sh

dir=/tmp
fnam=someshellscript

echo '#!/bin/sh' > $dir/$fnam
echo 'find /bin -name "*X*"' >> $dir/$fnam
chmod 755  $dir/$fnam

answered Mar 12, 2014 at 22:25

Peter - Reinstate Monica

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4 Comments

mckryall Over a year ago

What do the lines "echo '#!/bin/sh' > $dir/$fnam" and "echo 'find /bin -name "X"' >> $dir/$fnam" do?

Peter - Reinstate Monica Over a year ago

Ok, let's dissect them: "echo" is a command which just writes all its arguments to the standard output, here '#!/bin/sh' (the single quotes are for the shell to indicate the limits of the string and will be eliminated). The echo command ends with the special char ">" which indicates an redirection of the standard output. The standard output goes to the file whith a name indicated by the string to the right of it which is constructed from $dir/$fnam by replacing $dir with /tmp and $fnam with someshellscript, resulting (note the slash) in /tmp/someshellscript.

Peter - Reinstate Monica Over a year ago

For find I recommend "man find" although googling "unix find examples" may be more helpful in the beginning; find is not intuitive. The >> operator is similar to the > operator above in that it redirects the standard output to a file; but it appends instead of creating a new one (like > would do) which is what we want to do here: Write into our shell script, line by line. The chmod in the end should look famiiliar ;-). I think what you were missing was the simple "echo" in conjunction with output redirection. The rest is just like the commands you enter manually on the terminal.

mckryall Over a year ago

Thanks for the advice, but I see now that I didn't even need to make a new script. Apologies for necromancy. While this may be very well-documented, "a p"'s answer is shorter and less confusing to a beginner.

a p · Accepted Answer · 2014-03-12 22:25:50Z

1

#!/bin/sh
echo "script goes here!" > /path/to/place
chmod 755 /path/to/place

?

answered Mar 12, 2014 at 22:25

a p

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