Question

I need to set some variables in my shell and format the shell prompt before I do a certain task every time. Also I need to record my actions.

At the moment, I’m running a script, collecting all the information it needs (partly by user input) and it sets the new shell prompt and the variables. Then I start the recording with script $var-actionlog-$anothervar-1.log. The variables used are set during the call of my_script.sh. Then, since a new shell spawned by the script command, I need to call source my_script.sh again.

Is there a way that I can include the script-part directly in my_script.sh so that I don’t have to enter everything twice?

Answer 1

You can use export in your initial setup script to make the local variables global. For example, your setup script, my_script.sh could be:

#!/bin/sh
# A startup script

export var="world"
export PS1="\u@\h \w> "

echo "Please enter a number, followed by [ENTER]:"
read num

export anothervar="$num"

script $var-actionlog-$anothervar-1.log

Then, once the script has started, to confirm you can run:

echo var=$var, anothervar=$anothervar

If you want to set a different shell prompt ($PS1) in your my_script.sh, to be used by the typescript, make sure that you are not setting $PS1 in ~/.bashrc. The typescript, script $var-actionlog-$anothervar-1.log, calls ~/.bashrc every time and will override your prompt variable, $PS1. To set your prompt for log-in shells only, set this in ~/.bash_login.