File download automation in Bash Scripting - Mini Project: Build & Apply

File download automation

📖 Scenario: You work in an office where you often need to download files from the internet. Doing this manually every time wastes time. Automating file downloads with a simple script can save you effort and avoid mistakes.

🎯 Goal: You will create a bash script that downloads a list of files from given URLs automatically. The script will check if the files already exist before downloading to avoid duplicates.

📋 What You'll Learn

Create a bash array variable with exact URLs

Create a variable for the download folder path

Use a for loop to iterate over the URLs

Check if the file already exists before downloading

Use wget command to download files

Print the download status for each file

💡 Why This Matters

🌍 Real World

Automating file downloads saves time and reduces errors when you need to get many files regularly from the internet.

💼 Career

Many IT and DevOps roles require scripting to automate repetitive tasks like downloading files, making this skill valuable for efficiency and reliability.

1

Set up the list of file URLs

Create a bash array called file_urls with these exact URLs: https://example.com/file1.txt, https://example.com/file2.txt, and https://example.com/file3.txt.

Bash Scripting

# Create the bash array file_urls with the 3 URLs
# Your code here

Need a hint?

Use parentheses () to create a bash array and double quotes "" around each URL.

2

Create the download folder variable

Create a variable called download_folder and set it to downloads (a folder name).

Bash Scripting

file_urls=("https://example.com/file1.txt" "https://example.com/file2.txt" "https://example.com/file3.txt")
# Create the variable download_folder and set it to downloads
# Your code here

Need a hint?

Use = without spaces to assign the folder name as a string.

3

Write the loop to download files if missing

Write a for loop using url as the iterator to go through file_urls. Inside the loop, extract the filename from the URL using basename. Then check if the file $download_folder/$filename exists. If it does not exist, use wget to download the file into $download_folder. If it exists, print "File $filename already exists."

Bash Scripting

file_urls=("https://example.com/file1.txt" "https://example.com/file2.txt" "https://example.com/file3.txt")
download_folder="downloads"

# Write a for loop to iterate over file_urls
# Extract filename with basename
# Check if file exists in download_folder
# Download if missing, else print message
# Your code here

Need a hint?

Use mkdir -p to create the folder if it does not exist. Use basename to get the filename from the URL.

4

Print a final message after downloads

Add a echo command after the loop to print exactly: All downloads complete.

Bash Scripting

file_urls=("https://example.com/file1.txt" "https://example.com/file2.txt" "https://example.com/file3.txt")
download_folder="downloads"

mkdir -p "$download_folder"
for url in "${file_urls[@]}"; do
    filename=$(basename "$url")
    if [ ! -f "$download_folder/$filename" ]; then
        wget -P "$download_folder" "$url"
    else
        echo "File $filename already exists."
    fi
done

# Print the final message
# Your code here

Need a hint?

Use echo to print the message exactly as shown.