This is part two of a series on how to approach bash programming in a way that’s safer and more structured than your basic script.

See part 1 if you want to catch the series from the start.

Editor’s Choice

Before getting into coding, I want to recommend a good editor. A developer’s choice of an editor is like a chef’s choice of knives; a wise choice will serve a lifetime and make difficult tasks seem effortless. Vim is one such wise choice for slicing, dicing and julienning code.

That’s not to say there aren’t other good editors out there. For lightweight, functional text editors, I can recommend some good ones:

  • Linux - Geany

  • Windows - Programmer’s Notepad

  • Mac - Sorry, there aren’t any great lightweight, free Mac editors of which I’m aware - try Atom for two out of three

Vigor and Vim

Ok, so you’re sold on vim already. Vim works great for bash scripting out-of-the-box. So what more is there to say?

See my vim configuration repository for full details, but here are a couple tips (and a tip of the cap to mutewinter’s Vim Configuration of Champions, from which most of these come):

  • a plugin manager - vim-plug is a lightweight one

  • sensible defaults - everyone should start with vim-sensible

  • auto-delimiters - having matching parentheses, braces and quotes auto-added can be really nice. Try delimitMate.

  • auto statement endings - like the above, but automatically puts in the closing word (e.g. done or fi) for constructs such as for and if with vim-endwise

  • comments - comment and uncomment several lines at a stroke with tcomment

  • tab completion - the simplest is VimCompletesMe

  • indent guides - ‘nuf said - vim-indent-guides

Once you’re into the advanced stuff:

  • pair-wise manipulation of delimiters - vim-surround takes the tedium out of editing pairs of delimiters, especially for a language as quotation-heavy as bash is

  • exuberant ctags - if you like to find function definitions easily across multiple files, then vim-easytags is your friend

Color by Numbers

Line numbers. Use them. Navigate vertically with <line number>G and reorient the page with z<Enter>.

.vimrc:

set number

Put It On My Tab

Use smart tabs for two-space indentation.

.vimrc:

set tabstop=2
set shiftwidth=2
set shiftround
set expandtab
set formatoptions+=b

To indent and de-indent a single line or selected blocks of code, use the << and >> commands.

The Show Must Go On

Show matching delimiters and special whitespace.

.vimrc:

set showmatch   " Show matching brackets.
set matchtime=2 " How many tenths of a second to blink
" Show invisible characters
set list
" Reset the listchars
set listchars=""
" make tabs visible
set listchars=tab:▸▸
" show trailing spaces as dots
set listchars+=trail:•
" The character to show in the last column when wrap is off and the line
" continues beyond the right of the screen
set listchars+=extends:>
" The character to show in the last column when wrap is off and the line
" continues beyond the right of the screen
set listchars+=precedes:<

When I Say “Shell”, You Say “Bash”

Hint to vim that when you say shell, you mean bash syntax.

.vimrc:

let g:is_bash = 1

Continue with part 3 - the start.