How can I run a shell script from bashrc file?

Question

What I basically want to achieve is to type in a custom command in the terminal and a specific shell script should run each time.

I could achieve the above requirement with folders,by modifying the bashrc file like below

alias myScripts="cd /home/arun/Desktop/scripts"

Now when I try to do the same with a bash script by modiying the bashrc file as given below,

alias masterScript="bash /home/arun/Desktop/scripts/myMasterScript.sh"

now when I type masterScript im getting the following error:

"bash : No such file or directory" error

How can I correct this?

Solution 1

Just create a function:

function masterScript()
{
    if [ -e /home/arun/Desktop/scripts/myMasterScript.sh ]
    then
        bash /home/arun/Desktop/scripts/myMasterScript.sh
    fi
}

And make sure your script is executable:

chmod 755 /home/arun/Desktop/scripts/myMasterScript.sh

Solution 2

I tried this out .. I simply made it

alias masterScript="cd /home/arun/Desktop/scripts && myMasterScript.sh"

Solution 3

Make sure your masterScript.sh is executable by doing:

chmod +x masterScript.sh

If the script is not executable, the bash command cannot run it and you'll get these kind of error messages.

Comments

[Bruni]

I do not understand why this would be preferable to just put your script in your $PATH. If you move your script to ~/bin and add ~/bin to your path variable you can execute it from everywhere.

[Xen2050]

Sounds like the problem is/was that /home/arun/Desktop/scripts/myMasterScript.sh just didn't exist - typo?

[Xen2050]

This is not true - try it with bash non-executable-file and bash will run it

[codedge]

Ah right.. the +x permission seems to only matter if run via ./masterScript.sh

[John Orion]

sorry you are correct .. i updated my answer .. missed the ending quote :(

[Xen2050]

a bash terminal will display a newline & > waiting to close an open quote, makes it easy to catch. anyway, i'll del my old comment, and maybe this one tomorrow. +1

[Sergiy Kolodyazhnyy]

That's the way i would do it. +1 . There's no need for script , if you can achieve same action in few lines of code. Functions are ideal for that.