THE UNIVERSITY OF BRITISH COLUMBIA
 
Physics 210 Assignment # 3:
 
SHELL SCRIPTS & PHP
 
Tue. 21 Sep. 2010 - finish by Tue. 28 Sep.

In Assignment 2 you created a directory /home2/phys210/<you>/a02 in which to store the files you submitted for the second assignment.¹ You then used "chmod -R o-r" to make it and all its contents (including any possible subdirectories and their contents) inaccessible to o (for others). The second step will no longer be necessary, as we have set up a utility which periodically restores the correct ownership, group and permissions for the /home2/phys210/ directory tree.

This week, create /home2/phys210/<you>/a03 for your submissions on this assignment; and so on for the rest of the course. We won't remind you any more.

In the previous Assignment you learned how to customize your bash environment using the bash resource file .bashrc in your $HOME directory. By now you should have edited the template .bashrc file and the .aliases file it sources to suit your taste, including lots of personalized, idiosyncratic aliases that you find easier to remember (or more æsthetically pleasing) than the "raw" bash commands - which, while æsthetically offensive, are at least reasonably universal and thus worth remembering. This may impede your familiarization with bash, but for now, go ahead and indulge yourself with alias.

The goal of this Assignment is to make you reasonably familiar and comfortable with shell scripts and a few other important tools.

1. GET STUCK IN tar:  In your /home2/phys210/<you>/a03/ directory, write a short bash script called "bck.sh" that uses tar² to make a compressed "backup" of your entire /home2/phys210/<you> directory tree in a single file ~/HW.tar.gz (note that this file should be in your $HOME directory). Make a symbolic link to ~/HW.tar.gz in your /home2/phys210/<you>/a03/ directory. Here's what bck.sh should do: First, if there is already a ~/HW.tar.gz file, gunzip (decompress) it to ~/HW.tar - then use tar to append to ~/HW.tar any files in ~/HW/ (and its subdirectories) that have changed since the last time bck.sh was invoked - then gzip ~/HW.tar back to ~/HW.tar.gz and you're done. Use "man tar" to find out how to do the middle part.³ This is a valuable thing to know how to do.⁴

2. PLAY WITH ImageMagick:  Everyone likes graphics, so here's a treat for you: in your Terminal window, type "man ImageMagick" and learn about some of the things this free graphical manipulation library provides. You should also use your Web browser to consult the documentation in our Manuals link. Then, in your browser, right-click on the PHYS 210 logo at the top of our class homepage and use the "Save Image As . . . " menu item to save the file P210logo.gif - pay attention to where it gets saved, and then move it to your /home2/phys210/<you>/a03/ directory. In that directory, use the convert command supplied by ImageMagick to make files P210logo.jpg, P210logo.png, P210logo.tif and P210logo.pdf (plus any other graphics formats you are especially fond of). Which file is the smallest? Is it the one you expected? Record (in /home2/phys210/<you>/a03/readme.txt) your answer and any comments. If you want to make your own graphics (maybe a personal logo?), try "gimp". But don't get too distracted by it!

3. WHAT'S IN THE SCRIPT?   Copy the shell script ~phys210/bin/fib.sh to your own /home2/phys210/<you>/a03/ directory and (using your favourite editor) add comment lines (any line starting with "#") to explain what is happening at each step. Be ridiculously thorough; it will pay off in the end. Make sure that your copy of the file is executable ("chmod +x fib.sh") and check that it still works like the original despite all the comments you've added.⁵

4. BE THE BARD!⁶   WRITE A fact.⁷   Make your own bash script to generate a sequence of factorials: $F_n = n! \equiv n \times (n-1) \times (n-2) \times (n-3) \times \cdots \times 3 \times 2 \times 1$ with the exception of F₀ = 0! = 1. Thus the first six factorials (F₀ through F₅) are 1, 1, 2, 6, 24, 120 and so on. Of course, they go on forever, but they get very big very fast, so you don't want to try to generate all the factorials. Better if you specify the one to start on and how many more to print out.

   So your script, which you should call fact.sh  and which should be in your /home2/phys210/<you>/a03/ directory, should look for two arguments, $F_{\rm start}$ and N, so that (for example) if you invoke it with "fact.sh 2 3" it should print out on your screen "2 6 24 120" (not necessarily all on the same line). This should be simple, eh?⁸ To keep it that way, let's forbid using either of the first two factorials as $F_{\rm start}$. Thus if you enter 1 as your first argument you should get no response.

   If you enter the wrong number of arguments, the script should print out a "USAGE: . . . " message analogous to the one in fib.sh explaining how it is supposed to be used.

   Oh, and one final feature: if you enter a first argument that is not a factorial, your script should print out a polite but perhaps slightly sarcastic message informing the user that they have entered an invalid starting point.⁹

   You may want to start with a simpler version that just prints out the first 10 or so factorials, to make sure you have that part right; then add the bells and whistles involving arguments.

5. PUT IT ONLINE:  In my humble opinion¹⁰ shell scripts are not very elegant. There are much cleaner ways to do the same things, and then some! For instance, your personal homepage that you created last week need not be just a passive HTML file; it can actually do stuff, and show off the results to visitors, using scripting languages like PHP or JavaScript. I prefer PHP. The PHP script in ~phys210/public_html/fib.php does the same thing as the bash shell script fib.sh, but it does it online for anyone. Try it out at http://www.physics.ubc.ca/~phys210/fib.php and then convert it to make factorials in a file called fact.php in your own ~/public_html/p210/ directory.¹¹