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Detailed Course Plan: UCC121-1

This document outlines the course plan for the "Shells, Scripting, and Data Management" module.

UCC121-1: Shells, Scripting, and Data Management

Course Information Sheet

  • Title: Shells, Scripting, and Data Management
  • Code: UCC121-1
  • Prerequisites: Basic proficiency with the Linux command line (UCC111 or equivalent).
  • Duration: 12 hours (8 sessions of 1.5 hours each).
  • Objectives:
    • Master advanced command-line tools.
    • Create robust and modular shell scripts for automation.
    • Manipulate text data and interact with a simple database.
  • Assessment: Continuous assessment (Practical Labs), scripting project, final exam.

8-Session Breakdown

Session 1: Mastering the Shell Environment

  • Lesson: Fundamentals of the Bash shell, customizing .bashrc, managing aliases, functions, and environment variables (PATH, PS1).
  • Lab/Assessment: Create useful aliases, write a function to automate a simple task (e.g., mkcd), and customize the command prompt.

Session 2: Text Processing Tools: grep, sed, awk

  • Lesson: Introduction to regular expressions. Using grep for searching, sed for substitution, and awk for column extraction.
  • Lab/Assessment: Extract all IP addresses from a log file. Replace a string in a series of configuration files.

Session 3: Bash Scripting Fundamentals

  • Lesson: Anatomy of a script (shebang, permissions), variables, reading user input (read), handling parameters ($1, $@), command substitution $(...).
  • Lab/Assessment: Write a script that takes a filename as a parameter and displays its first 3 lines.

Session 4: Logic and Control Structures

  • Lesson: if/elif/else conditions, file and string tests [[ ... ]]. The case statement. Handling exit codes ($?).
  • Lab/Assessment: Write a script that checks if a user exists in /etc/passwd.

Session 5: Loops and Iteration

  • Lesson: for loops (over lists, sequences, files), while loops (to read a file line-by-line), and until loops.
  • Lab/Assessment: Write a script that bulk renames all .jpeg files in a folder to .jpg.

Session 6: Functions and Modularity

  • Lesson: Declaring and calling functions, variable scope (local/global), passing arguments, and returning values. Sourcing function files.
  • Lab/Assessment: Transform a monolithic script into a modular script using functions.

Session 7: Introduction to Data Management with SQL

  • Lesson: Principles of relational databases. Using sqlite3 for CREATE TABLE, INSERT, SELECT, UPDATE, DELETE.
  • Lab/Assessment: Create a simple inventory database and write a shell script to query it.

Session 8: Process Management and Automation with cron

  • Lesson: Managing background jobs (&, jobs, fg, bg, nohup). Scheduling tasks with cron.
  • Lab/Assessment: Launch a script as a background task. Schedule a backup script to run every night.

Glossary of Terms

  • awk: A powerful command-line tool for processing and analyzing column-based text data.
  • alias: A custom shortcut for a longer command. Defined in shell configuration files.
  • Bash (Bourne Again SHell): The default command-line interpreter on most Linux systems.
  • .bashrc: A script file that is executed every time a new interactive shell is started. Used for personal customizations.
  • cron: A time-based job scheduler in Unix-like operating systems. Used to automate repetitive tasks.
  • crontab: The file or command used to specify the schedule of cron jobs.
  • Environment Variable: A dynamic named value that can affect the way running processes will behave on a computer. PATH and HOME are examples.
  • grep: A command-line utility for searching plain-text data sets for lines that match a regular expression.
  • function: A reusable block of code that is more powerful than an alias and can accept arguments.
  • PATH: An environment variable specifying the set of directories where executable programs are located.
  • PS1: The primary prompt string environment variable, which controls the appearance of the command prompt.
  • Regular Expression (Regex): A sequence of characters that specifies a search pattern in text.
  • sed: A "stream editor" utility for parsing and transforming text.
  • Shebang (#!): The first two characters of a script, which tell the system what interpreter to use to run it (e.g., #!/bin/bash).
  • Shell: A user interface for access to an operating system's services. In this context, a command-line interface (CLI).
  • SQL (Structured Query Language): A standard language for managing and manipulating data in relational databases.
  • sqlite3: A command-line interface to a self-contained, serverless, zero-configuration, transactional SQL database engine.