Tilde expansion (~) in Bash Scripting - Mini Project: Build & Apply

Using Tilde Expansion (~) in Bash Scripts

📖 Scenario: You are writing a simple bash script to work with files in your home directory. Instead of typing the full path, you want to use the tilde (~) symbol to represent your home folder.

🎯 Goal: Learn how to use tilde expansion (~) in bash scripts to refer to the home directory easily.

📋 What You'll Learn

Create a variable with a path using tilde (~)

Create a variable with a filename

Combine the path and filename using tilde expansion

Print the full path using tilde expansion

💡 Why This Matters

🌍 Real World

Using tilde expansion helps you write shorter and clearer bash scripts that work with files in your home directory without typing the full path.

💼 Career

Many automation and scripting tasks require working with user files. Knowing tilde expansion saves time and avoids errors when specifying paths.

1

Create a variable with the home directory path using tilde (~)

Create a variable called home_path and set it to ~/documents without surrounding quotes.

Bash Scripting

# Create a variable called home_path with the value ~/documents (no quotes)
# Your code here

Need a hint?

Assign without quotes: home_path=~/documents. This allows the shell to expand the tilde immediately.

2

Create a variable for the filename

Create a variable called file_name and set it to the string notes.txt exactly.

Bash Scripting

home_path=~/documents
# Create a variable called file_name with the value 'notes.txt'
# Your code here

Need a hint?

Just assign the string notes.txt to file_name without quotes.

3

Combine the path and filename using tilde expansion

Create a variable called full_path that combines home_path and file_name with a slash / between them, using double quotes to allow variable expansion.

Bash Scripting

home_path=~/documents
file_name=notes.txt
# Combine home_path and file_name into full_path with a slash, using double quotes
# Your code here

Need a hint?

Use double quotes around $home_path/$file_name so the shell expands the variables.

4

Print the full expanded path

Use the echo command to print the value of full_path so the tilde expands to your home directory.

Bash Scripting

home_path=~/documents
file_name=notes.txt
full_path="$home_path/$file_name"
# Print the full_path variable
# Your code here

Need a hint?

Just write echo $full_path to see the expanded path.