Quick Bash Script for Complete Newbies

At work or grad school, I have to juggle a lot of projects and it always takes me a while to remember which directory I was in and what I named the project environment. I wanted ‘shortcuts’ in the terminal that would automate the things I was typing out manually each time. To do this, I saved these custom functions and source them into .zshrc.

1. Create a file for your custom scripts

I store a file for these personal macros, let’s create one here:

cd /usr/local/bin/
touch personal_macros.
vi personal_macros

This navigates to your /usr/local/bin/ directory, creates the personal_macros file with touch and uses vim to open it with vi.

2. Write functions

Once your blank file is created you need to add in your functions. The first line that starts with the #! (shebang) tells bash that this is a zshell script. I don’t remember if this is absolutely necessary but I had it here.

#!/usr/bin/env zsh

function explore() {
  cd ~/Documents/Analysis
  conda activate explore
  code .
}

function workmode() {
  cd ~/Documents/Analysis/GT/ISYE6501
  open .
  open ISYE6501.Rproj
}

These are examples of basic functions. The first one, explore() navigates to a folder and activates a conda environment called explore. Then it opens up a vscode window in the folder.

The second function workmode() navigates to another folder, opens an explorer window there, and then will open my ISYE6501.Rproj project in RStudio.

Remember, when you’re done with vim, type :wq to save your changes and exit.

:wq

3. Add these functions to your .zshrc file

After you’re done creating the functions it’s time to add them to the .zshrc file so you can call these functions from the terminal.

cd
vi .zshrc

Then you want to add a line to source your personal_macros file by adding in this line to the .zshrc file:

source /usr/local/bin/personal_macros

Go ahead and save and exit vim:

:wq

Now you can reload your terminal and the functions will be available to you! Just type explore or workmode and it’ll run through the steps in your script.

I like to create functions that follow a particular taxonomy. For work projects, I’ll make a function for each project I’m working on, starting with work- so it’s easy to remember and I can utilize tab completion. For example, I’ll have a work-unicorn function when I’m working on the unicorn project and a work-phoenix function when I want to resume work on the phoenix project.

Happy scripting!