I have an alias already in my .bash_profile to download files using cUrl's -o (output to file, user provides the file name) option. I find I'm using it quite a bit, so I wanted to write a script to run "curl -o", taking the necessary inputs - file name and URL from which to download - and then returning to a "parked" state like some python scripts I've seen do, ready to take in another filename and URL. The script should also, on reading a 'buzzword' (not "quit" -- that's too literal and it might be confused by the shell), put up one last echo and exit as normal.

Then my imagination kicked in and I started to wonder, also, if it wouldn't be possible to have the script log its own activity to an external file as soon as a download is complete, naming the file with the date and time created along with its own name or some generic 'tag' such as "curldl-activity-021810-223516H.txt", and keep logging to the same file until the exit word or phrase was entered.

I have a pretty firm idea of how to write the part of the script that takes in the name and URL and invokes cUrl to do the downloading. That would probably best be handled in a function, I'm thinking. I'm a bit sketchy on setting the conditional for an exit buzzword, and while I've written scripts and executed commands to send data to outside files, where to put such a command in this script is something I'm sure I've learned somewhere but can't recall, at any rate.

So again, here's me picking the brains of the gurus and asking for advice.

BZT