how to handle exit code for multiple sequential unix command in a shell script - shell

I am need of shell script which have multiple commands like
Command -1 mv
command 2- cp
command -3 - sed
command -4 echo ,append etc
rc=$?
if =0 success
else
exist30
but even though move command failed script retuning return code as 0 and script showing success message.
Do i need to main RC for all the command or can i better handle return code for each command to make sure every command run successfully

If you have to deal with commands which may fail you can do the following:
if mv ...; then
echo mv success
else
echo mv failure
rc=1
fi
exit 1
For having your script to crash with the first failed command make sure to add the line set -e below your shebang (#!/bin/sh).
Keep in mind that the error handling above is compatible with set -e, the script will not stop.
set -eu is considered best practice for shell scripts, -u will result in a crash of your script if a variable used is unset.

Related

`grep` cause bash script stop [duplicate]

I'm studying the content of this preinst file that the script executes before that package is unpacked from its Debian archive (.deb) file.
The script has the following code:
#!/bin/bash
set -e
# Automatically added by dh_installinit
if [ "$1" = install ]; then
if [ -d /usr/share/MyApplicationName ]; then
echo "MyApplicationName is just installed"
return 1
fi
rm -Rf $HOME/.config/nautilus-actions/nautilus-actions.conf
rm -Rf $HOME/.local/share/file-manager/actions/*
fi
# End automatically added section
My first query is about the line:
set -e
I think that the rest of the script is pretty simple: It checks whether the Debian/Ubuntu package manager is executing an install operation. If it is, it checks whether my application has just been installed on the system. If it has, the script prints the message "MyApplicationName is just installed" and ends (return 1 mean that ends with an “error”, doesn’t it?).
If the user is asking the Debian/Ubuntu package system to install my package, the script also deletes two directories.
Is this right or am I missing something?
From help set :
-e Exit immediately if a command exits with a non-zero status.
But it's considered bad practice by some (bash FAQ and irc freenode #bash FAQ authors). It's recommended to use:
trap 'do_something' ERR
to run do_something function when errors occur.
See http://mywiki.wooledge.org/BashFAQ/105
set -e stops the execution of a script if a command or pipeline has an error - which is the opposite of the default shell behaviour, which is to ignore errors in scripts. Type help set in a terminal to see the documentation for this built-in command.
I found this post while trying to figure out what the exit status was for a script that was aborted due to a set -e. The answer didn't appear obvious to me; hence this answer. Basically, set -e aborts the execution of a command (e.g. a shell script) and returns the exit status code of the command that failed (i.e. the inner script, not the outer script).
For example, suppose I have the shell script outer-test.sh:
#!/bin/sh
set -e
./inner-test.sh
exit 62;
The code for inner-test.sh is:
#!/bin/sh
exit 26;
When I run outer-script.sh from the command line, my outer script terminates with the exit code of the inner script:
$ ./outer-test.sh
$ echo $?
26
As per bash - The Set Builtin manual, if -e/errexit is set, the shell exits immediately if a pipeline consisting of a single simple command, a list or a compound command returns a non-zero status.
By default, the exit status of a pipeline is the exit status of the last command in the pipeline, unless the pipefail option is enabled (it's disabled by default).
If so, the pipeline's return status of the last (rightmost) command to exit with a non-zero status, or zero if all commands exit successfully.
If you'd like to execute something on exit, try defining trap, for example:
trap onexit EXIT
where onexit is your function to do something on exit, like below which is printing the simple stack trace:
onexit(){ while caller $((n++)); do :; done; }
There is similar option -E/errtrace which would trap on ERR instead, e.g.:
trap onerr ERR
Examples
Zero status example:
$ true; echo $?
0
Non-zero status example:
$ false; echo $?
1
Negating status examples:
$ ! false; echo $?
0
$ false || true; echo $?
0
Test with pipefail being disabled:
$ bash -c 'set +o pipefail -e; true | true | true; echo success'; echo $?
success
0
$ bash -c 'set +o pipefail -e; false | false | true; echo success'; echo $?
success
0
$ bash -c 'set +o pipefail -e; true | true | false; echo success'; echo $?
1
Test with pipefail being enabled:
$ bash -c 'set -o pipefail -e; true | false | true; echo success'; echo $?
1
This is an old question, but none of the answers here discuss the use of set -e aka set -o errexit in Debian package handling scripts. The use of this option is mandatory in these scripts, per Debian policy; the intent is apparently to avoid any possibility of an unhandled error condition.
What this means in practice is that you have to understand under what conditions the commands you run could return an error, and handle each of those errors explicitly.
Common gotchas are e.g. diff (returns an error when there is a difference) and grep (returns an error when there is no match). You can avoid the errors with explicit handling:
diff this that ||
echo "$0: there was a difference" >&2
grep cat food ||
echo "$0: no cat in the food" >&2
(Notice also how we take care to include the current script's name in the message, and writing diagnostic messages to standard error instead of standard output.)
If no explicit handling is really necessary or useful, explicitly do nothing:
diff this that || true
grep cat food || :
(The use of the shell's : no-op command is slightly obscure, but fairly commonly seen.)
Just to reiterate,
something || other
is shorthand for
if something; then
: nothing
else
other
fi
i.e. we explicitly say other should be run if and only if something fails. The longhand if (and other shell flow control statements like while, until) is also a valid way to handle an error (indeed, if it weren't, shell scripts with set -e could never contain flow control statements!)
And also, just to be explicit, in the absence of a handler like this, set -e would cause the entire script to immediately fail with an error if diff found a difference, or if grep didn't find a match.
On the other hand, some commands don't produce an error exit status when you'd want them to. Commonly problematic commands are find (exit status does not reflect whether files were actually found) and sed (exit status won't reveal whether the script received any input or actually performed any commands successfully). A simple guard in some scenarios is to pipe to a command which does scream if there is no output:
find things | grep .
sed -e 's/o/me/' stuff | grep ^
It should be noted that the exit status of a pipeline is the exit status of the last command in that pipeline. So the above commands actually completely mask the status of find and sed, and only tell you whether grep finally succeeded.
(Bash, of course, has set -o pipefail; but Debian package scripts cannot use Bash features. The policy firmly dictates the use of POSIX sh for these scripts, though this was not always the case.)
In many situations, this is something to separately watch out for when coding defensively. Sometimes you have to e.g. go through a temporary file so you can see whether the command which produced that output finished successfully, even when idiom and convenience would otherwise direct you to use a shell pipeline.
I believe the intention is for the script in question to fail fast.
To test this yourself, simply type set -e at a bash prompt. Now, try running ls. You'll get a directory listing. Now, type lsd. That command is not recognized and will return an error code, and so your bash prompt will close (due to set -e).
Now, to understand this in the context of a 'script', use this simple script:
#!/bin/bash
# set -e
lsd
ls
If you run it as is, you'll get the directory listing from the ls on the last line. If you uncomment the set -e and run again, you won't see the directory listing as bash stops processing once it encounters the error from lsd.
set -e The set -e option instructs bash to immediately exit if any command [1] has a non-zero exit status. You wouldn't want to set this for your command-line shell, but in a script it's massively helpful. In all widely used general-purpose programming languages, an unhandled runtime error - whether that's a thrown exception in Java, or a segmentation fault in C, or a syntax error in Python - immediately halts execution of the program; subsequent lines are not executed.
By default, bash does not do this. This default behavior is exactly what you want if you are using bash on the command line
you don't want a typo to log you out! But in a script, you really want the opposite.
If one line in a script fails, but the last line succeeds, the whole script has a successful exit code. That makes it very easy to miss the error.
Again, what you want when using bash as your command-line shell and using it in scripts are at odds here. Being intolerant of errors is a lot better in scripts, and that's what set -e gives you.
copied from : https://gist.github.com/mohanpedala/1e2ff5661761d3abd0385e8223e16425
this may help you .
Script 1: without setting -e
#!/bin/bash
decho "hi"
echo "hello"
This will throw error in decho and program continuous to next line
Script 2: With setting -e
#!/bin/bash
set -e
decho "hi"
echo "hello"
# Up to decho "hi" shell will process and program exit, it will not proceed further
It stops execution of a script if a command fails.
A notable exception is an if statement. eg:
set -e
false
echo never executed
set -e
if false; then
echo never executed
fi
echo executed
false
echo never executed
cat a.sh
#! /bin/bash
#going forward report subshell or command exit value if errors
#set -e
(cat b.txt)
echo "hi"
./a.sh; echo $?
cat: b.txt: No such file or directory
hi
0
with set -e commented out we see that echo "hi" exit status being reported and hi is printed.
cat a.sh
#! /bin/bash
#going forward report subshell or command exit value if errors
set -e
(cat b.txt)
echo "hi"
./a.sh; echo $?
cat: b.txt: No such file or directory
1
Now we see b.txt error being reported instead and no hi printed.
So default behaviour of shell script is to ignore command errors and continue processing and report exit status of last command. If you want to exit on error and report its status we can use -e option.

How can I test a command before a pipe, capture it's output and understand if the command ran successfully or not

I'm writting a script that will execute commands on different servers automatically and I am trying to log all it's content and output. I am having difficulties with redirections and command status output. Meaning was the command successfull and what is its output?
I have tried many directions such redirecting the command output to a function or file. I have tried a simple if statement. Both worked for there respected function. But when I am trying to combine both of them the script always return the command to be successfull. And to some level it is.
#!/bin/bash
function Executing(){
if [ "$1" != "" ]; then
if [ $DEBUG = "true" ]; then
echo "$1" | Debug i s
if $1 2>&1 | Debug o o;then
echo "$1" | Debug s r
else
echo "$1" | Debug e r
fi
else
eval $1
fi
fi
}
Executing "apt-get update"
Also note that the system requires sudo to execute apt-get update. Thus the script should report & log an error. Right now tho, whenever I call the Executing function, the function returns a successful execution. I am pretty sure it does because of the added pipe | debug o o that captures the output and formats it. Which I'll later redirect to a log file.
So I tested if apt-get update;then echo yes;else echo no; fi which worked in my terminal. But as soon as I pipe the output to the function debug, the if statement returns true.
Try with set -o pipefail.
Check the manual: The Set Builtin
Usually, bash returns the exit code of the last command of a pipe group, so your Debug command was the one that was checked. With that setting, bash returns the exit status of the last (rightmost) command to exit with a non-zero status. If your command fails, that is the status that get propagated.

Catching all bad signals for called commands in Bash script

We are creating a bash script for a build server. We want to ensure that when we execute a bash command inside the script, it returns with a signal of 0. If it does not, we want execution to stop. Our solution so far is to do:
#some command
if [ $? -ne 0 ] ; then
#handle error
fi
after every command that could cause this problem. This makes the code quite long and doesn't seem very elegant. We could use a bash function, perhaps. Although working with $? can be a bit tricky, and we would still have to call the function after every command. Is there a better way? I've looked at the trap command but it seems to only do signal handling with the bash script I am writing, not any commands I call.
The robust, canonical way of doing this is:
#!/bin/bash
die() {
local ret=$?
echo >&2 "$*"
exit "$ret"
}
./configure || die "Project can't be configured"
make || die "Project doesn't build"
make install || die "Installation failed"
The fragile, convenient way of doing this is set -e:
#!/bin/bash
set -e # Script will exit in many (but not all) cases if a command fails
./configure
make
make install
or equivalently (with a custom error message):
#!/bin/bash
# Will be called for many (but not all) commands that fail
trap 'ret=$?; echo >&2 "Failure on line $LINENO, exiting."; exit $ret' ERR
./configure
make
make install
For the latter two, the script will not exit for any command that is part of a conditional statement or &&/||, so while:
backup() {
set -e
scp backup.tar.gz user#host:/backup
rm backup.tar.gz
}
backup
will correctly avoid executing rm if the transfer fails, later inserting a feature like this:
if backup
then
mail -s "Backup completed successfully" user#example.com
fi
will make the backup stop exiting on failure and accidentally delete backups.

grep in bash script + Jenkins

I have a grep command that works in a bash script:
if grep 'stackoverflow' outFile.txt; then
exit 1
fi
This works fine when run on my host. When I call this from a Jenkins build step however, it exits 0 everytime, not seeing 'stackoverflow'. What is going wrong?
Add the following line as the first line in your "Execute Shell" command
#!/bin/sh
grep command exits with a non zero code when it does not find match and that causes jenkins to mark the job as failed. See Below.
In the help section of "Execute Shell"
Runs a shell script (defaults to sh, but this is configurable) for building the project. The script will be run with the workspace as the current directory. Type in the contents of your shell script. If your shell script has no header line like #!/bin/sh —, then the shell configured system-wide will be used, but you can also use the header line to write script in another language (like #!/bin/perl) or control the options that shell uses.
By default, the shell will be invoked with the "-ex" option. So all of the commands are printed before being executed, and the build is considered a failure if any of the commands exits with a non-zero exit code. Again, add the #!/bin/... line to change this behavior.
As a best practice, try not to put a long shell script in here. Instead, consider adding the shell script in SCM and simply call that shell script from Jenkins (via bash -ex myscript.sh or something like that), so that you can track changes in your shell script.
I am a bit confused by the answers on this question! i.e. Sorry, but the answers here are incorrect for this question. The question is good/interesting as plain grep in scripts does cause scripts to exit with failure if the grep is not successful (which can be unexpected), whereas a grep inside an if will not cause exit with failure.
For the example shown in the question exit 1 will be done IF the grep command runs successfully(file exists) AND if the string is found in file. (grep command returns 0 exit code to if).
#Gonen's comment to add 'ls -l outFile.txt' should have been followed up on to see what the real reason for failure was.
TLDR; if catches the exit code of commands inside the if clause:
A grep command that 'fails'(no match or error) inside an if statement in jenkins will not cause jenkins script to stop. Whereas a grep command that fails not inside an if will cause jenkins to stop and exit with fail.
The exit/return code handling is different for commands inside an if statement in shell. if catches the return code and no matter if command was successful or failed the if will return success to $0(after if) (and do actions in if or else).
From man bash:
if list; then list; [ elif list; then list; ] ... [ else list; ] fi
The if list is executed. If its exit status is zero, the then list is executed. Otherwise, each elif list is executed in turn, and
if its exit status is zero, the corresponding then list is executed
and the command completes. Otherwise, the else list is executed, if
present. The exit status is the exit status of the last command
executed, or zero if no condition tested true.
To illustrate, try this (same result in bash or sh):
$ if grep foo bar ; then echo got it; fi; echo $?
grep: bar: No such file or directory
0
$ touch bar
$ if grep foo bar ; then echo got it; fi; echo $?
0
$ echo foo >bar
$ if grep foo bar ; then echo got it; fi; echo $?
foo
got it
0
$ if grep foo bar ; then echo gotit; grep gah mah; fi; echo $?
foo
gotit
grep: mah: No such file or directory
2
I think you have error in your script. You must add 'fi' at the end of 'if' block:
if grep 'stackoverflow' outFile.txt; then
exit 1
fi
If the two were exactly the same it should work. Is your current directory or user different in the two environments? You might not be able to read the file.

Automatic exit from Bash shell script on error [duplicate]

This question already has answers here:
Aborting a shell script if any command returns a non-zero value
(10 answers)
Closed 3 years ago.
I've been writing some shell script and I would find it useful if there was the ability to halt the execution of said shell script if any of the commands failed. See below for an example:
#!/bin/bash
cd some_dir
./configure --some-flags
make
make install
So in this case, if the script can't change to the indicated directory, then it would certainly not want to do a ./configure afterwards if it fails.
Now I'm well aware that I could have an if check for each command (which I think is a hopeless solution), but is there a global setting to make the script exit if one of the commands fails?
Use the set -e builtin:
#!/bin/bash
set -e
# Any subsequent(*) commands which fail will cause the shell script to exit immediately
Alternatively, you can pass -e on the command line:
bash -e my_script.sh
You can also disable this behavior with set +e.
You may also want to employ all or some of the the -e -u -x and -o pipefail options like so:
set -euxo pipefail
-e exits on error, -u errors on undefined variables, -x prints commands before execution, and -o (for option) pipefail exits on command pipe failures. Some gotchas and workarounds are documented well here.
(*) Note:
The shell does not exit if the command that fails is part of the
command list immediately following a while or until keyword,
part of the test following the if or elif reserved words, part
of any command executed in a && or || list except the command
following the final && or ||, any command in a pipeline but
the last, or if the command's return value is being inverted with
!
(from man bash)
To exit the script as soon as one of the commands failed, add this at the beginning:
set -e
This causes the script to exit immediately when some command that is not part of some test (like in a if [ ... ] condition or a && construct) exits with a non-zero exit code.
Use it in conjunction with pipefail.
set -e
set -o pipefail
-e (errexit): Abort the script at the first error, when a command exits with non-zero status (except in until or while loops, if-tests, and list constructs)
-o pipefail: Causes a pipeline to return the exit status of the last command in the pipe that returned a non-zero return value.
Chapter 33. Options
Here is how to do it:
#!/bin/sh
abort()
{
echo >&2 '
***************
*** ABORTED ***
***************
'
echo "An error occurred. Exiting..." >&2
exit 1
}
trap 'abort' 0
set -e
# Add your script below....
# If an error occurs, the abort() function will be called.
#----------------------------------------------------------
# ===> Your script goes here
# Done!
trap : 0
echo >&2 '
************
*** DONE ***
************
'
An alternative to the accepted answer that fits in the first line:
#!/bin/bash -e
cd some_dir
./configure --some-flags
make
make install
One idiom is:
cd some_dir && ./configure --some-flags && make && make install
I realize that can get long, but for larger scripts you could break it into logical functions.
I think that what you are looking for is the trap command:
trap command signal [signal ...]
For more information, see this page.
Another option is to use the set -e command at the top of your script - it will make the script exit if any program / command returns a non true value.
One point missed in the existing answers is show how to inherit the error traps. The bash shell provides one such option for that using set
-E
If set, any trap on ERR is inherited by shell functions, command substitutions, and commands executed in a subshell environment. The ERR trap is normally not inherited in such cases.
Adam Rosenfield's answer recommendation to use set -e is right in certain cases but it has its own potential pitfalls. See GreyCat's BashFAQ - 105 - Why doesn't set -e (or set -o errexit, or trap ERR) do what I expected?
According to the manual, set -e exits
if a simple commandexits with a non-zero status. The shell does not exit if the command that fails is part of the command list immediately following a while or until keyword, part of the test in a if statement, part of an && or || list except the command following the final && or ||, any command in a pipeline but the last, or if the command's return value is being inverted via !".
which means, set -e does not work under the following simple cases (detailed explanations can be found on the wiki)
Using the arithmetic operator let or $((..)) ( bash 4.1 onwards) to increment a variable value as
#!/usr/bin/env bash
set -e
i=0
let i++ # or ((i++)) on bash 4.1 or later
echo "i is $i"
If the offending command is not part of the last command executed via && or ||. For e.g. the below trap wouldn't fire when its expected to
#!/usr/bin/env bash
set -e
test -d nosuchdir && echo no dir
echo survived
When used incorrectly in an if statement as, the exit code of the if statement is the exit code of the last executed command. In the example below the last executed command was echo which wouldn't fire the trap, even though the test -d failed
#!/usr/bin/env bash
set -e
f() { if test -d nosuchdir; then echo no dir; fi; }
f
echo survived
When used with command-substitution, they are ignored, unless inherit_errexit is set with bash 4.4
#!/usr/bin/env bash
set -e
foo=$(expr 1-1; true)
echo survived
when you use commands that look like assignments but aren't, such as export, declare, typeset or local. Here the function call to f will not exit as local has swept the error code that was set previously.
set -e
f() { local var=$(somecommand that fails); }
g() { local var; var=$(somecommand that fails); }
When used in a pipeline, and the offending command is not part of the last command. For e.g. the below command would still go through. One options is to enable pipefail by returning the exit code of the first failed process:
set -e
somecommand that fails | cat -
echo survived
The ideal recommendation is to not use set -e and implement an own version of error checking instead. More information on implementing custom error handling on one of my answers to Raise error in a Bash script

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