On Jun 1, 2007, at 10:03 AM, John A.M. Darnell wrote:

>    The cat's away and the mice will play...at least I'm playing  
> with bash
> scripting (just because I have the time and I would like to  
> know...).  I'm
> having a rough time getting off the ground, however.  I am writing  
> a very,
> very simple script that looks like this:
>
> #!/bin/bash
> echo  "Hello $USER."
> ls
>
> This file is saved as lst.bsh.
>
> I am then executing this very simple script in Terminal with this  
> command:
>
> bash lst.bsh
>
> Nothing happens except that the command prompt returns.  I see no  
> echo nor
> do I see a file listing.
>
> What fundamental step am I missing?

You aren't missing anything that I can see.  Works for me--getting  
the script into a file using Mac Copy from the mail message,
cat > 1st.bsh
[Paste]
^d

My default shell is bash.  Is yours?  If not, try executing
bash

then
chmod u+x 1st.bsh
./1st.bsh

(That dance shouldn't be necessary.)

   --John