1. Have a sound knowledge of basic scripting and programming concepts

Module Title Studio 1

Code CFT2112

Assignment

Aims

This assignment aims to give you an opportunity to demonstrate the following learning outcomes (see the module specification for further details)

Knowledge and Understanding

Upon completion of this module, the student will:

1. Have a sound knowledge of basic scripting and programming concepts

2. Be aware of typical software structures and design/development procedures

Abilities Upon completion of this module, the student will be able to:

1. Design appropriate technical solutions to a problem or brief

2. Construct prototype software

3. Test and evaluate a developed software prototype

Problem Statement and Brief

You are required to implement a set of custom UNIX/Linux tools using shell scripting. The set of tools you are tasked to design and implement are listed below:

1. Specific Tools, these tools should be relatively straightforward to implement once you have some familiarity with some standard Linux commands:

a. chmx – a command that takes filenames as its arguments and makes those files executable to all users.

b. lshead – list the first few lines of every file in a directory specified by the argument. This command should also allow options to either list the first n lines or the last n lines of the files. Example usage: lshead –head 10 documents would list the first ten lines in every file in the documents directory.

c. del – a version of rm which only copies files to a special “.waste” directory. You will need to create this special directory yourself.

d. wastesize - reports the number of files in the waste bin.

e. emptywaste – permanently deletes everything in your waste bin.

f. listwaste– lists the names of all the files in your waste bin and their size in bytes

2. Create two custom tools of your own design. For this task, you need to consider the strengths of shell scripts in relation to interacting with an operating system. For example, executing some repetitive tasks on large number of items; piping commands for evaluating system status; or event writing small utilities for calculations and search etc.

3. Attempt the following problem/requirement for a implementing a complex command.

Write a bash script to take an argument initially and then to prompt for input until a control value is entered. The input is a string of characters and the script should count the digits (0-9) and alphabetic characters (a-z A-Z) entered. Any other values should be counted as non-alphanumeric characters. Once the control value has been entered the script should exit and print out the number of digits, letters and other characters entered