Countdown timer shell script

thameera — Wed, 30 Oct 2013 15:11:43 +0000

I made a small countdown script for the shell. It goes as follows:

	#!/bin/bash

	# USAGE
	# ./countdown
	# eg:
	# ./countdown 300 Time to rock!

	date1=$((`date +%s` + $1));
	shift

	while [ "$date1" -ne `date +%s` ]; do
	echo -ne "$(date --date @$(($date1 - `date +%s` - 19800 )) +%H:%M:%S)\r";
	done

	notify-send 'Timer finished' "$*"
	zenity --info --title "Timer finished" --text "$*"

view raw countdown hosted with ❤ by GitHub

Some tricks used in the script include:

echo -ne "blah blah \r" was used to write in the same line over and over
That 19800 is the time difference from GMT 0.0 in seconds. In Sri Lanka, it’s 5.30 hrs. Yes, we’re dealing with epoch time here, but still trying to figure out why we need to offset the time difference.
notify-send sends a desktop notification
zenity --info pops up a message box

You can also add a sound to play with mplayer.

timer – Accidents Happen