Managing Test Files with create_files and delete_files Bash Scripts

Introduction: In software development and testing, we often need to create and manage various test files. To automate this process and make it more efficient, we can use bash scripts. In this blog, we will introduce two simple bash scripts, create_files and delete_files, which help to create and delete test files respectively.

Note: “\Code” and “\Test” are sibling directories, which means they are located at the same level in the directory structure. The script or code is executed from the “\Code” directory.

Create_files Script

The create_files script is designed to automate the process of creating test files with specific naming conventions. For every file in your directory that follows the naming pattern test<num>.cmm, the script creates two new files named test<num>_1.cmm and test<num>_2.cmm, if they don’t already exist.

Here is the content of the create_files script:

#!/bin/bash

for file in test*.cmm; do
  if [[ -f "$file" ]]; then
    filename=$(basename -- "$file")
    extension="${filename##*.}"
    filename_without_extension="${filename%.*}"
    num="${filename_without_extension#test}"

    new_file1="test${num}_1.cmm"
    new_file2="test${num}_2.cmm"

    if [[ ! -f "$new_file1" ]]; then
      touch "$new_file1"
      echo "Created $new_file1"
    fi

    if [[ ! -f "$new_file2" ]]; then
      touch "$new_file2"
      echo "Created $new_file2"
    fi
  fi
done

To use the create_files script, follow these steps:

1. Save the above script to a file named create_files in your project directory.
2. Give execute permissions to the script:

chmod +x create_files

1. Run the script:

./create_files

Delete_files Script

The delete_files script is used to delete files that follow the naming pattern test<num>_1.cmm and test<num>_2.cmm, while keeping the original test<num>.cmm files intact.

Here is the content of the delete_files script:

#!/bin/bash

for file in test*_1.cmm test*_2.cmm; do
  if [[ -f "$file" ]]; then
    rm "$file"
    echo "Deleted $file"
  fi
done

To use the delete_files script, follow these steps:

1. Save the above script to a file named delete_files in your project directory.
2. Give execute permissions to the script:

chmod +x delete_files

1. Run the script:

./delete_files