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2. Starting a project

note

Before starting, let's get first some example files:

mkdir -p examples
cd examples/

wget https://linux-cli.fs.al/examples/lesson10.tgz

tar xfz lesson10.tgz

cd lesson10/
ls

We will start to write a script that generates a report about various status and statistics of the system. This report will be in the HTML format.

The first step is to write a program (script) that outputs a basic HTML page to the standard output. An example of a basic HTML page is on the file page.html:
```
cat page.html
```
```
lynx page.html
```
Type q and y to quit.
```
mv page.html sys_info.sh
```
```
vim sys_info.sh
```
```
:1,$ s/^/echo "/
```
```
:% s/$/"/
```
Type 1G, then capital O, and write these lines:
```
#!/bin/bash

# Program to output a system information page
```
Press ESC and type :wq.
```
chmod +x sys_info.sh
```
```
./sys_info.sh
```
```
./sys_info.sh > sys_info.html
```
```
lynx sys_info.html
```
Type q and y to quit.
We can make this script more simple and clear by using a single echo:
```
vim sys_info.sh
```
```
:6,$ s/echo "//
```
```
:5,$-1 s/"$//
```
```
:wq
```
```
./sys_info.sh
```
A quoted string may contain newlines, and therefore contain multiple lines of text.

Let's put some data on the report:

vim sys_info.sh

:% s/Page Title/System Information Report/

:% s#Page body#<h1>System Information Report</h1>#

:wq

./sys_info.sh

We can use a variable to avoid the repetition of the text "System Information Report":
```
vim sys_info.sh
```
```
:% s/System Information Report/$title/
```
```
/echo
```
Press capital O to open a new line above and write:
```
title="System Information Report"
```
Press ESC and type :wq.
```
./sys_info.sh
```

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