[LUG]Re: writing shell scripts

[Paul Sutton via list <list@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Hi

Firstly thank you for all the suggestions, I now have this working with 
a basic script to toot out a link every Monday,  so I will refine 
further, as I go.

I will take a closer look at the different solutions, as some are 
probably more suited to other tasks.

If it helps beginners,  with regard to scheduling

https://crontab.guru/

Seems a good tool for helping with this.

With regard to using AI,  I have no issue with this as a solution, 
however it was suggested people check the output, this surely assumes 
some competency in that programming / scripting tool, be it c,bash, 
python so that the code produced does what it is meant to, but can also 
be modified.

Anyway it works

Thanks again

Paul

On 24/10/2025 16:36, Paul Sutton via list wrote:
> Hi
>
> I am trying to write a shell script that when run will read a text file, 
> which contains a list e.g
>
> item1
> item2
> item3
>
> and for now echo the first line to stdout and in the case of what I have 
> send to another text file
>
> #display first line of a file
> head -n 1 lines.txt > topline.txt
> #delete first line of a file
> sed -i -e "1d" lines.txt
> cat topline.txt
>
> But I don't think this is at all the correct way to do this.  I am 
> trying to find out how,  but
>
> The ultimate aim of will be to
>
> Take a text file or list of urls (lets say Code Club Activities)
> Run the script say, every monday at 02:00 am
> each time the script is run, it will use the toot (mastodon cli tool) to 
> send that url to a Mastodon account.
> then the next time it is run,  send the next url in the list.
>
> I think I need to start by identifying the correct way to do this,  then 
> write or get help writing the a script to do this.
>
> I should not have a program getting a shell script to run at an allotted 
> time each week using cron.
>
> So for example
>
> https://projects.raspberrypi.org/en/projects/space-talk
> https://projects.raspberrypi.org/en/projects/catch-the-bus
> https://projects.raspberrypi.org/en/projects/find-the-bug
> https://projects.raspberrypi.org/en/projects/silly-eyes
> https://projects.raspberrypi.org/en/projects/surprise-animation
>
> I had some help before with regard to reading an array containing a list 
> of files, which then runs on all entries in the array. However, in this 
> case the script will run and act on the first item,   then run again a 
> week later and act on the 2nd item.
>
> So it needs a way to track which item to send.
>
> So over a period of 5/6 weeks I send out a different activity each week.
>
> However, I also appreciate that sending out just a url is not very 
> friendly or helpful,  so there should be some text wrapped around it.
>
> I could perhaps create a series of text files with url and wrapper text.
>
> Hopefully, this can be run on a Raspberry pi,  and it can just be left 
> on and do tasks at allotted times.
>
> Could someone help / advise please.
>
> Thanks for any help
>
>
> Paul

--
Paul Sutton, Cert Cont Sci (Open)
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