Style guide and conventions in Bash Scripting - Mini Project: Build & Apply

Style Guide and Conventions in Bash Scripting

📖 Scenario: You are working as a junior system administrator. Your team wants all bash scripts to follow a clear style guide. This helps everyone read and maintain scripts easily.

🎯 Goal: You will create a simple bash script following good style and naming conventions. This includes using clear variable names, comments, indentation, and consistent formatting.

📋 What You'll Learn

Create variables with lowercase names and underscores

Add comments explaining the script

Use indentation for readability

Use double quotes around variables

Print a clear message as output

💡 Why This Matters

🌍 Real World

Following style guides in bash scripting helps teams maintain scripts that automate system tasks, backups, and monitoring.

💼 Career

System administrators and DevOps engineers write bash scripts daily. Clear style and conventions reduce errors and improve collaboration.

1

Create variables with clear names

Create two variables called user_name and user_age. Set user_name to "Alice" and user_age to 30.

Bash Scripting

# Create variables user_name and user_age with values
# Your code here

Need a hint?

Use lowercase letters and underscores for variable names. Assign strings with quotes and numbers without quotes.

2

Add comments and use indentation

Add a comment above the variables explaining they store user info. Then add a comment below explaining the script prints a greeting. Use indentation for the print command in the next step.

Bash Scripting

## Your comments here
user_name="Alice"
user_age=30

# Your code here

Need a hint?

Start comments with # and keep them short and clear. Leave a blank line between sections for readability.

3

Use double quotes around variables in echo

Write an echo command that prints: Hello, Alice! You are 30 years old. Use the variables user_name and user_age inside double quotes. Indent the echo command with 4 spaces.

Bash Scripting

# Print greeting message
    # Your code here

Need a hint?

Use double quotes around the whole string and $variable to insert values. Indent with spaces, not tabs.

4

Run the script and check output

Run the script and print the output. The output should exactly be: Hello, Alice! You are 30 years old.

Bash Scripting

# Run the script and print output
# Your code here

Need a hint?

Run the script in your terminal or use bash script.sh if saved in a file.