1

What I basically want to achieve is to type in a custom command in the terminal and a specific shell script should run each time.

I could achieve the above requirement with folders,by modifying the bashrc file like below

alias myScripts="cd /home/arun/Desktop/scripts"

Now when I try to do the same with a bash script by modiying the bashrc file as given below,

alias masterScript="bash /home/arun/Desktop/scripts/myMasterScript.sh"

now when I type masterScript im getting the following error:

"bash : No such file or directory" error

How can I correct this?

4
  • I think i may have an answer but let me make sure I have this correct .. when you ... alias myScripts in bashrc it will open the folder path but if you alias it to a script it says no file... is this right?
    – John Orion
    Commented May 5, 2016 at 6:40
  • 3
    I do not understand why this would be preferable to just put your script in your $PATH. If you move your script to ~/bin and add ~/bin to your path variable you can execute it from everywhere.
    – Bruni
    Commented May 5, 2016 at 6:43
  • Or if you don't want to change $PATH linking the script into a directory that is already in $PATH, i.e. ln -s /home/arun/Desktop/scripts/myMasterScript.sh /usr/local/bin/
    – con-f-use
    Commented May 5, 2016 at 14:56
  • Sounds like the problem is/was that /home/arun/Desktop/scripts/myMasterScript.sh just didn't exist - typo?
    – Xen2050
    Commented May 5, 2016 at 15:01

3 Answers 3

Reset to default
4

Just create a function:

function masterScript()
{
    if [ -e /home/arun/Desktop/scripts/myMasterScript.sh ]
    then
        bash /home/arun/Desktop/scripts/myMasterScript.sh
    fi
}

And make sure your script is executable:

chmod 755 /home/arun/Desktop/scripts/myMasterScript.sh
1
  • That's the way i would do it. +1 . There's no need for script , if you can achieve same action in few lines of code. Functions are ideal for that.
    – Sergiy Kolodyazhnyy
    Commented May 5, 2016 at 14:59
1

I tried this out .. I simply made it 

alias masterScript="cd /home/arun/Desktop/scripts && myMasterScript.sh"
2
  • sorry you are correct .. i updated my answer .. missed the ending quote :(
    – John Orion
    Commented May 5, 2016 at 14:46
  • a bash terminal will display a newline & > waiting to close an open quote, makes it easy to catch. anyway, i'll del my old comment, and maybe this one tomorrow. +1
    – Xen2050
    Commented May 5, 2016 at 14:58
1

Make sure your masterScript.sh is executable by doing:

chmod +x masterScript.sh

If the script is not executable, the bash command cannot run it and you'll get these kind of error messages.

2
  • This is not true - try it with bash non-executable-file and bash will run it
    – Xen2050
    Commented May 5, 2016 at 12:22
  • Ah right.. the +x permission seems to only matter if run via ./masterScript.sh
    – codedge
    Commented May 5, 2016 at 12:29

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