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Linux Shell Scripting Cookbook, Second Edition

You're reading from   Linux Shell Scripting Cookbook, Second Edition Don't neglect the shell ‚Äì this book will empower you to use simple commands to perform complex tasks. Whether you're a casual or advanced Linux user, the cookbook approach makes it all so brilliantly accessible and, above all, useful.

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Product type Paperback
Published in May 2013
Publisher Packt
ISBN-13 9781782162742
Length 384 pages
Edition 2nd Edition
Tools
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Toc

Table of Contents (16) Chapters Close

Linux Shell Scripting Cookbook
Credits
About the Authors
About the Reviewers
www.PacktPub.com
Preface
1. Shell Something Out FREE CHAPTER 2. Have a Good Command 3. File In, File Out 4. Texting and Driving 5. Tangled Web? Not At All! 6. The Backup Plan 7. The Old-boy Network 8. Put on the Monitor's Cap 9. Administration Calls Index

Grabbing information about the terminal


While writing command-line shell scripts, we will often need to heavily manipulate information about the current terminal, such as the number of columns, rows, cursor positions, masked password fields, and so on. This recipe helps in collecting and manipulating terminal settings.

Getting ready

tput and stty are utilities that can be used for terminal manipulations. Let us see how to use them to perform different tasks.

How to do it...

There are specific information you can gather about the terminal as shown in the following list:

  • Get the number of columns and rows in a terminal by using the following commands:

    tput cols
    tput lines
    
  • To print the current terminal name, use the following command:

    tput longname
    
  • To move the cursor to a 100,100 position, you can enter:

    tput cup 100 100
    
  • Set the background color for the terminal using the following command:

    tputsetb n
    

    n can be a value in the range of 0 to 7.

  • Set the foreground color for text by using the following command:

    tputsetf n
    

    n can be a value in the range of 0 to 7.

  • To make text bold use this:

    tput bold
    
  • To start and end underlining use this:

    tput smul
    tput rmul
    
  • To delete from the cursor to the end of the line use the following command:

    tputed
    
  • While typing a password, we should not display the characters typed. In the following example, we will see how to do it using stty:

    #!/bin/sh
    #Filename: password.sh
    echo -e "Enter password: "
    stty -echo
    read password
    stty echo
    echo
    echo Password read.
    

    Note

    The -echo option in the preceding command disables the output to the terminal, whereas echo enables output.

You have been reading a chapter from
Linux Shell Scripting Cookbook, Second Edition - Second Edition
Published in: May 2013
Publisher: Packt
ISBN-13: 9781782162742
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