Best way for conditionally (and verbosely) run a command in bash - bash

I have written a shell script (bash) which runs some commands. It has an option to not to run the commands but to echo them to the screen. By default, the output of these commands is redirected to /dev/null but there is another option to show the output on the screen.
I use a function to check for the value of these variables and run the commands or simulate them:
runmaybe() {
if [[ true = $dry_run ]]; then
echo "Simulating '$#'"
else
if [[ true = $verbose ]]; then
$#
else
$# > /dev/null
fi
fi
}
The function is working but I had some issues with complex commands such as:
runmaybe eval svn cp $url $root/tags/$ntag -m \"Tagging revision with $ntag\"
I had to add the eval to prevent wordsplitting so svn gets the right value for the -m option.
I have some other complex commands in that script such as:
runmaybe vzctl exec 1 "( cd /var/wwww/vhosts/myhost ; php cron.php )"
runmaybe ssh -t user#$host "vzctl exec $vmid \"( /usr/local/bin/myscript )\"" 2>/dev/null
runmaybe rsync --delete --exclude=\"**/.svn/\" --exclude=\"**/.git/\" --include=*.exe --numeric-ids -a $vOpt -H $LOCAL_VM$dir $host:$REMOTE_VM$dir
Although the script is working right now, I wonder if there is a better way of doing this task.

The problem is in unquoted expansion of $#. As a rule of a thumb, if you see $, you should put it inside ". Unquoted expansions undergo word splitting and filename expansions - to prevent them, quote the expansion.
I had to add the eval
eval is evil. Do not use it.
runmaybe() {
if [[ true = $dry_run ]]; then
echo "Simulating '$*'"
# or better quote with printf in some corner cases
printf "Simulating:"
printf " %q" "$#"
printf "\n"
elif [[ true = $verbose ]]; then
"$#"
else
"$#" > /dev/null
fi
}
runmaybe svn cp "$url" "$root/tags/$ntag" -m "Tagging revision with $ntag"
runmaybe rsync --delete --exclude="**/.svn/" --exclude="**/.git/" --include="*.exe" --numeric-ids -a "$vOpt" -H "$LOCAL_VM$dir" "$host:$REMOTE_VM$dir"

Related

Eval error Argument list too long when expandind a command

I got some code from here that works pretty well until I get "Argument list too long"
I am NOT a developer and pretty old too :) so if it is not much to ask please explain.
Is there a way the expand DIRCMD like eval does and pass each of the commands one at the time so eval does not break?
for (( ifl=0;ifl<$((NUMFIRSTLEVELDIRS));ifl++ )) { FLDIR="$(get_rand_dirname)"
FLCHILDREN="";
for (( ird=0;ird<$((DIRDEPTH-1));ird++ )) {
DIRCHILDREN=""; MOREDC=0;
for ((idc=0; idc<$((MINDIRCHILDREN+RANDOM%MAXDIRCHILDREN)); idc++)) {
CDIR="$(get_rand_dirname)" ;
# make sure comma is last, so brace expansion works even for 1 element? that can mess with expansion math, though
if [ "$DIRCHILDREN" == "" ]; then
DIRCHILDREN="\"$CDIR\"" ;
else
DIRCHILDREN="$DIRCHILDREN,\"$CDIR\"" ;
MOREDC=1 ;
fi
}
if [ "$MOREDC" == "1" ] ; then
if [ "$FLCHILDREN" == "" ]; then
FLCHILDREN="{$DIRCHILDREN}" ;
else
FLCHILDREN="$FLCHILDREN/{$DIRCHILDREN}" ;
fi
else
if [ "$FLCHILDREN" == "" ]; then
FLCHILDREN="$DIRCHILDREN" ;
else
FLCHILDREN="$FLCHILDREN/$DIRCHILDREN" ;
fi
fi
}
cd $OUTDIR
DIRCMD="mkdir -p $OUTDIR/\"$FLDIR\"/$FLCHILDREN"
eval "$DIRCMD"
echo "$DIRCMD"
}
I tried echo $DIRCMD but do not get the expanded list of commands
'echo mkdir -p /mnt/nvme-test/rndpath/"r8oF"/{"rc","XXKR","p0H"}/{"5Dw0K","oT","rV","coU","uo"}/{"3m5m","uEdA","w4SJp","49"}'
I had trouble following the code, but if I understood it correctly, you dynamically generate a mkdir -p command with a brace expansion:
'mkdir -p /mnt/nvme-test/rndpath/"r8oF"/{"rc","XXKR","p0H"}/{"5Dw0K","oT","rV","coU","uo"}/{"3m5m","uEdA","w4SJp","49"}'
Which then fails when you eval it due to your OS' maximum argument limit.
To get around that, you can instead generate a printf .. command since this is a Bash builtin and not subject to the argument limit, and feed its output to xargs:
dircmd='printf "%s\0" /mnt/nvme-test/rndpath/"r8oF"/{"rc","XXKR","p0H"}/{"5Dw0K","oT","rV","coU","uo"}/{"3m5m","uEdA","w4SJp","49"}'
eval "$dircmd" | xargs -0 mkdir -p
If your xargs doesn't support -0, you can instead use printf "%s\n" and xargs mkdir -p, though it won't behave as well if your generated names contain spaces and such.
If this is for benchmarking, you may additionally be interested to know that you can now use xargs -0 -n 1000 -P 8 mkdir -p to run 8 mkdirs in parallel, each creating 1000 dirs at a time.

bash: script to identify specific alias causing a bug

[Arch Linux v5.0.7 with GNU bash 5.0.3]
Some .bashrc aliases seem to conflict with a bash shell-scripts provided by pyenv and pyenv-virtualenvwrapper.I tracked down the problem running the script, using set -x and with all aliases enabled, and saw finally that the script exits gracefully with exit code is 0 only when aliases are disabled with unalias -a. So this has to do with aliases... but which one ?
To try to automate that, I wrote the shell-script below:
It un-aliases one alias at a time, reading iteratively from the complete list of aliases,
It tests the conflicting shell script test.sh against that leave-one-out alias configuration, and prints something in case an error is detected,
It undoes the previous un-aliasing,
It goes on to un-aliasing the next alias.
But the two built-ins alias and unalias do not fare well in the script cac.sh below:
#! /usr/bin/bash
[ -e aliases.txt ] && rm -f aliases.txt
alias | sed 's/alias //' | cut -d "=" -f1 > aliases.txt
printf "File aliases.txt created with %d lines.\n" \
"$(wc -l < <(\cat aliases.txt))"
IFS=" "
n=0
while read -r line || [ -n "$line" ]; do
n=$((n+1))
aliasedAs=$( alias "$line" | sed 's/alias //' )
printf "Line %2d: %s\n" "$n" "$aliasedAs"
unalias "$line"
[ -z $(eval "$*" 1> /dev/null) ] \ # check output to stderr only
&& printf "********** Look up: %s\n" "$line"
eval "${aliasedAs}"
done < <(tail aliases.txt) # use tail + proc substitution for testing only
Use the script like so: $ cac.sh test.sh [optional arguments to test.sh] Any test.sh will do. It just needs to return some non-empty string to stderr.
The first anomaly is that the file aliases.txt is empty as if the alias builtin was not accessible from within the script. If I start the script from its 3rd line, using an already populated aliases.txt file, the script fails at the second line within the while block, again as if alias could not be called from within the script. Any suggestions appreciated.
Note: The one liner below works in console:
$ n=0;while read -r line || [ -n "$line" ]; do n=$((n+1)); printf "alias %d : %s\n" "$n" "$(alias "$line" | sed 's/alias //')"; done < aliases.txt
I would generally advise against implementing this as an external script at all -- it makes much more sense as a function that can be evaluated directly in your interactive shell (which is, after all, where all the potentially-involved aliases are defined).
print_result() {
local prior_retval=$? label=$1
if (( prior_retval == 0 )); then
printf '%-30s - %s\n' "$label" WORKS >&2
else
printf '%-30s - %s\n' "$label" BROKEN >&2
fi
}
test_without_each_alias() {
[ "$#" = 1 ] || { echo "Usage: test_without_each_alias 'code here'" >&2; return 1; }
local alias
(eval "$1"); print_result "Unchanged aliases"
for alias in "${!BASH_ALIASES[#]}"; do
(unalias "$alias" && eval "$1"); print_result "Without $alias"
done
}
Consider the following:
rm_in_home_only() { [[ $1 = /home/* ]] || return 1; rm -- "$#"; }
alias rm=rm_in_home_only # alias actually causing our bug
alias red_herring=true # another alias that's harmless
test_without_each_alias 'touch /tmp/foobar; rm /tmp/foobar; [[ ! -e /tmp/foobar ]]'
...which emits something like:
Unchanged aliases - BROKEN
Without rm - WORKS
Without red_herring - BROKEN
Note that if the code you pass executes a function, you'll want to be sure that the function is defined inside the eval'd code; since aliases are parser behavior, they take place when functions are defined, not when functions are run.
#Kamil_Cuk, #Benjamin_W and #cdarke all pointed to the fact that a noninteractive shell (as that spawned from a bash script) does not have access to aliases.
#CharlesDuffy pointed to probable word splitting and glob expansion resulting in something that could be invalid test syntax in the original [ -z $(eval "$*" 1> /dev/null) ] block above, or worse yet in the possibility of $(eval "$*" 1> /dev/null) being parsed as a glob resulting in unpredictable script behavior. Block corrected to: [ -z "$(eval "$*" 1> /dev/null)" ].
Making the shell spawned by cac.sh interactive, with #! /usr/bin/bash -i. make the two built-ins alias and unalias returned non-null result when invoked, and BASH_ALIASES[#] became accessible from within the script.
#! /usr/bin/bash -i
[ -e aliases.txt ] && rm -f aliases.txt
alias | sed 's/alias //' | cut -d "=" -f1 > aliases.txt
printf "File aliases.txt created with %d lines.\n" \
"$(wc -l < <(\cat aliases.txt))"
IFS=" "
while read -r line || [ -n "$line" ]; do
aliasedAs=$( alias "$line" | sed 's/alias //' )
unalias "$line"
[ -z "$(eval "$*" 2>&1 1>/dev/null)" ] \ # check output to stderr only
&& printf "********** Look up: %s\n" "$line"
eval "${aliasedAs}"
done < aliases.txt
Warning: testing test.sh resorts to the eval built-in. Arbitrary code can be executed on your system if test.sh and optional arguments do not come from a trusted source.

"alias method chain" in Bash or Zsh

This is (or was, at least) a common pattern in Ruby, but I can't figure out how to do it in Zsh or Bash.
Let's suppose I have a shell function called "whoosiwhatsit", and I want to override it in a specific project, while still keeping the original available under a different name.
If I didn't know better, I might try creating an alias to point to whoosiwhatsit, and then create a new "whoosiwhatsit" function that uses the alias. Of course that work, since the alias will refer to the new function instead.
Is there any way to accomplish what I'm talking about?
Aliases are pretty weak. You can do this with functions though. Consider the following tools:
#!/usr/bin/env bash
PS4=':${#FUNCNAME[#]}:${BASH_SOURCE}:$LINENO+'
rename_function() {
local orig_definition new_definition new_name retval
retval=$1; shift
orig_definition=$(declare -f "$1") || return 1
new_name="${1}_"
while declare -f "$new_name" >/dev/null 2>&1; do
new_name+="_"
done
new_definition=${orig_definition/"$1"/"$new_name"}
eval "$new_definition" || return
unset -f "$orig_definition"
printf -v "$retval" %s "$new_name"
}
# usage: shadow_function target_name shadowing_func [...]
# ...replaces target_name with a function which will call:
# shadowing_func target_renamed_to_this number_of_args_in_[...] [...] "$#"
shadow_function() {
local shadowed_func eval_code shadowed_name shadowing_func shadowed_func_renamed
shadowed_name=$1; shift
shadowing_func=$1; shift
rename_function shadowed_func_renamed "$shadowed_name" || return
if (( $# )); then printf -v const_args '%q ' "$#"; else const_args=''; fi
printf -v eval_code '%q() { %q %q %s "$#"; }' \
"$shadowed_name" "$shadowing_func" "$shadowed_func_renamed" "$# $const_args"
eval "$eval_code"
}
...and the following example application of those tools:
whoosiwhatsit() { echo "This is the original implementation"; }
override_in_directory() {
local shadowed_func=$1; shift
local override_cmd_len=$1; shift
local override_dir=$1; shift
local -a override_cmd=( )
local i
for (( i=1; i<override_cmd_len; i++)); do : "$1"
override_cmd+=( "$1" ); shift
done
: PWD="$PWD" override_dir="$override_dir" shadowed_func="$shadowed_func"
: override_args "${override_args[#]}"
if [[ $PWD = $override_dir || $PWD = $override_dir/* ]]; then
[[ $- = *x* ]] && declare -f shadowed_func >&2 # if in debugging mode
"${override_cmd[#]}"
else
"$shadowed_func" "$#"
fi
}
ask_the_user_first() {
local shadowed_func=$1; shift;
shift # ignore static-argument-count parameter
if [[ -t 0 ]]; then
read -r -p "Press ctrl+c if you are unsure, or enter if you are"
fi
"$shadowed_func" "$#"
}
shadow_function whoosiwhatsit ask_the_user_first
shadow_function whoosiwhatsit \
override_in_directory /tmp echo "Not in the /tmp!!!"
shadow_function whoosiwhatsit \
override_in_directory /home echo "Don't try this at home"
The end result is a whoosiwhatsit function that asks the user before it does anything when its stdin is a TTY, and aborts (with different messages) when run under either /tmp or /home.
That said, I don't condone this practice. Consider the above provided as an intellectual exercise. :)
In bash, there is a built-in variable called BASH_ALIASES that is an associative array containing the current aliases. The semantics are a bit inconsistent when you update it (RTM!) but if you restrict yourself to reading BASH_ALIASES, you should be able to write yourself a shell function that implements alias chaining.
It's common and well supported to create a single level of overrides through functions that optionally invoke their overridden builtin or command:
# Make all cd commands auto-exit on failure
cd() { builtin cd "$#" || exit; }
# Make all ssh commands verbose
ssh() { command ssh -vv "$#"; }
It doesn't chain beyond the one link, but it's completely POSIX and often works better in practice than trying to write Ruby in Bash.

Bash programming with filesystem functions

I have been busy this week trying to wrap my head around a little Bash program to migrate a CMS from one server to another. The reasopn for this is because I have more tha 40 of these to do, and need to get it done in a timely manner, thus the Bash idea.
Needless to say, I have run into a couple of problems so far, but one of them has halted my development completetly, directory checking.
No I have tried a couple of methods and none of them seem to work really. The catch is that I have to check the folder on a remote server via ssh. Here my example:
ExSshRsa=~/.ssh/id_rsa
ExSshPort=22
ExSshHost=localhost
ExRoot=/var/www/
echo -n "Verifying Root access $ExRoot..."
SSHRoot='ssh -i $ExSshRsa -p $ExSshPort $ExSshHost [ -d $ExRoot ] || exit 1 '
echo $SSHRoot
if [ "$SSHRoot" -eq 0 ]
then
echo "OK"
else
echo "FAIL"
fi
I get the Error: [: : integer expression expected
Does the [ or test not resturn a 0 which is numerical. ?
Passing strings as arguments to a remote host is not trivial; you need to use arrays. A test example:
declare -a cmd=(touch "file name with spaces")
printf -v escaped_cmd_str '%q ' "${cmd[#]}"
ssh localhost $escaped_cmd
ssh localhost ls # Should return "file name with spaces" on a separate line
So your case should be:
ExSshRsa=~/.ssh/id_rsa
ExSshPort=22
ExSshHost=localhost
ExRoot=/var/www/
echo -n "Verifying Root access $ExRoot..."
declare -a cmd=( '[' -d "$ExRoot" ']' ) # Need to quote "[" since it's a Bash-specific symbol
printf -v escaped_cmd_str '%q ' "${cmd[#]}"
if ssh -i "$ExSshRsa" -p "$ExSshPort" "$ExSshHost" $escaped_cmd
then
echo "OK"
else
echo "FAIL"
fi
This is a rare case where using unquoted variable expansion is perfectly fine.
change the shebang to #!/bin/bash -x and look at the output...
you are storing a string in variable SSHRoot using single quotes, meaning that no variables will be expanded, i.e. a $ is still a $. Use double quotes instead, i.e. "
to store the output from a command in bash, use
var=$(cmd)
the exist status of a command is stored in the variable $?. Do a check on that after the ssh-command
you are never executing the ssh-command in your code
Great link here for bash-programming
Try the following:
ExSshRsa=~/.ssh/id_rsa
ExSshPort=22
ExSshHost=localhost
ExRoot=/var/www/
echo -n "Verifying Root access $ExRoot..."
cmd="bash -c \"[ -d $ExRoot ] || exit 1\""
SSHRoot="ssh -i $ExSshRsa -p $ExSshPort $ExSshHost ${cmd}"
$SSHRoot
if [ $? -eq 0 ]
then
echo "OK"
else
echo "FAIL"
fi
The variables weren't being replaced in your SSHRoot variable as it's in single quotes. Also, you weren't passing an executable command, so that's why I use bash -c above. It will run the bash commands inside the quoted string.
$? stores the exit value of the last command, in this case the SSHRoot one.
#!/bin/bash
ExSshRsa=~/.ssh/id_rsa
ExSshPort=22
ExSshHost=localhost
ExBase='/tmp/'
ExRoot='one space/'
declare -a AExRoot
for argR in "${ExRoot[#]}"
do
ExRoot+=($(printf %q "$argR"))
done
clear
FRoot=( $ExBase${ExRoot[#]} )
echo -n "Verifying Root access $FRoot..."
SSHRootTest="bash -c \"[ -d $FRoot ] && echo 0 && exit 0 || echo 1 && exit 1\""
SSHRoot=$( ssh -i $ExSshRsa -p $ExSshPort $ExSshHost ${SSHRootTest})
if [ $? -eq 0 ]
then
echo -en "\e[1;32mOK\e[0;37;m..."
else
echo -en "\e[1;31mFAIL\e[0;37;m..."
fi
sleep 1
if [ -w $FRoot ]
then
echo -e "\e[1;32mwritable\e[0;37;m"
else
echo -e "\e[1;31mNOT writeable\e[0;37;m"
fi
echo -e "\e[0;m"
exit 0
So I have incorporated all of the suggestions so far and have one last problem, the FRoot is not getting populated by the complete array values. Other than that I think it now has the subjective approach as suggested #john-keyes, the proper expansion #frederik and the crazy space escapes #l0b0

Checking in bash and csh if a command is builtin

How can I check in bash and csh if commands are builtin? Is there a method compatible with most shells?
You can try using which in csh or type in bash. If something is a built-in command, it will say so; otherwise, you get the location of the command in your PATH.
In csh:
# which echo
echo: shell built-in command.
# which parted
/sbin/parted
In bash:
# type echo
echo is a shell builtin
# type parted
parted is /sbin/parted
type might also show something like this:
# type clear
clear is hashed (/usr/bin/clear)
...which means that it's not a built-in, but that bash has stored its location in a hashtable to speed up access to it; (a little bit) more in this post on Unix & Linux.
In bash, you can use the type command with the -t option. Full details can be found in the bash-builtins man page but the relevant bit is:
type -t name
If the -t option is used, type prints a string which is one of alias, keyword, function, builtin, or file if name is an alias, shell reserved word, function, builtin, or disk file, respectively. If the name is not found, then nothing is printed, and an exit status of false is returned.
Hence you can use a check such as:
if [[ "$(type -t read)" == "builtin" ]] ; then echo read ; fi
if [[ "$(type -t cd)" == "builtin" ]] ; then echo cd ; fi
if [[ "$(type -t ls)" == "builtin" ]] ; then echo ls ; fi
which would result in the output:
read
cd
For bash, use type command
For csh, you can use:
which command-name
If it's built-in, it will tell so.
Not sure if it works the same for bash.
We careful with aliases, though. There may be options for that.
The other answers here are close, but they all fail if there is an alias or function with the same name as the command you're checking.
Here's my solution:
In tcsh
Use the where command, which gives all occurrences of the command name, including whether it's a built-in. Then grep to see if one of the lines says that it's a built-in.
alias isbuiltin 'test \!:1 != "builtin" && where \!:1 | egrep "built-?in" > /dev/null || echo \!:1" is not a built-in"'
In bash/zsh
Use type -a, which gives all occurrences of the command name, including whether it's a built-in. Then grep to see if one of the lines says that it's a built-in.
isbuiltin() {
if [[ $# -ne 1 ]]; then
echo "Usage: $0 command"
return 1
fi
cmd=$1
if ! type -a $cmd 2> /dev/null | egrep '\<built-?in\>' > /dev/null
then
printf "$cmd is not a built-in\n" >&2
return 1
fi
return 0
}
In ksh88/ksh93
Open a sub-shell so that you can remove any aliases or command names of the same name. Then in the subshell, use whence -v. There's also some extra archaic syntax in this solution to support ksh88.
isbuiltin() {
if [[ $# -ne 1 ]]; then
echo "Usage: $0 command"
return 1
fi
cmd=$1
if (
#Open a subshell so that aliases and functions can be safely removed,
# allowing `whence -v` to see the built-in command if there is one.
unalias "$cmd";
if [[ "$cmd" != '.' ]] && typeset -f | egrep "^(function *$cmd|$cmd\(\))" > /dev/null 2>&1
then
#Remove the function iff it exists.
#Since `unset` is a special built-in, the subshell dies if it fails
unset -f "$cmd";
fi
PATH='/no';
#NOTE: we can't use `whence -a` because it's not supported in older versions of ksh
whence -v "$cmd" 2>&1
) 2> /dev/null | grep -v 'not found' | grep 'builtin' > /dev/null 2>&1
then
#No-op
:
else
printf "$cmd is not a built-in\n" >&2
return 1
fi
}
Using the Solution
Once you applied the aforementioned solution in the shell of your choice, you can use it like this...
At the command line:
$ isbuiltin command
If the command is a built-in, it prints nothing; otherwise, it prints a message to stderr.
Or you can use it like this in a script:
if isbuiltin $cmd 2> /dev/null
then
echo "$cmd is a built-in"
else
echo "$cmd is NOT a built-in"
fi

Resources