how do you make `nix-shell` read from stdin? - bash

interactive programs can typically read input from stdin, e.g.,
$ echo echo hello | bash
hello
or
$ echo 1 2 + p | dc
3
however, nix-shell does not seem to behave this way, e.g.
$ echo hello | nix-shell -p hello
$
whereas the expected output would have been Hello, world!.
using the trick suggested in nix-shell(1):
--command cmd
In the environment of the derivation, run the shell command cmd. This command is executed in an
interactive shell. (Use --run to use a non-interactive shell instead.) However, a call to exit is
implicitly added to the command, so the shell will exit after running the command. To prevent
this, add return at the end; e.g. --command "echo Hello; return" will print Hello and then drop
you into the interactive shell. This can be useful for doing any additional initialisation.
leads to an error:
$ echo hello | nix-shell -p hello --command return
/tmp/nix-shell-15399-0/rc: line 1: return: can only `return' from a function or sourced script
$
my versions of the relevant programs are these:
$ nix --version
nix (Nix) 2.3.2
$ bash --version
GNU bash, version 4.4.23(1)-release (x86_64-pc-linux-gnu)
$
hence my question: how do i make nix-shell read from stdin, like bash or dc?

Unlike its name may suggest, nix-shell isn't a shell in the typical UNIX sense of the word; only in the broader sense that it's a program for starting programs.
The -p arguments only serve to bring software into the shell's environment. You can use multiple and they don't have the effect of actually running those programs*.
To make nix-shell start bash, regardless of nix-shell's own logic, use for example:
$ echo hello | nix-shell -p hello --run bash
Hello, world!

Related

Saving the result of an echo command in a shell script?

I am attempting to store the result of an echo command as a variable to be used in a shell script. Debian 4.19.0-6-amd64
The command works in terminal: echo $HOSTNAME returns debian-base, the correct hostname.
I attempt to run it in a shell script, such as:
#!/usr/bin/bash
CURRENT_HOSTNAME=`echo $HOSTNAME`
echo $CURRENT_HOSTNAME
I have tried expansion:
CURRENT_HOSTNAME=$(echo $HOSTNAME)
And just to cover some more bases, I tried things like:
CURRENT_HOSTNAME=$HOSTNAME
# or
CURRENT_HOSTNAME="$HOSTNAME"
# also, in case a problem with reserved names:
test=$HOSTNAME
test="$HOSTNAME"
Works great in the terminal! Output is as follows:
root#debian-base:/scripts# echo $HOSTNAME
debian-base
root#debian-base:/scripts# TEST_HOSTNAME=$HOSTNAME
root#debian-base:/scripts# echo $TEST_HOSTNAME
debian-base
root#debian-base:/scripts# TEST_TWO_HOSTNAME=$(echo $HOSTNAME)
root#debian-base:/scripts# echo $TEST_TWO_HOSTNAME
debian-base
As soon as I run the script (as above):
root#debian-base:/scripts# sh test.sh
root#debian-base:/scripts#
What am I doing wrong?
You are using bash as your terminal. Bash has the variable $HOSTNAME set. You run your script with sh. sh does not have a $HOSTNAME.
Options:
bash test.sh
Or run it as a program:
chmod +x test.sh
./test.sh
But I think you need to change your first line to:
#!/bin/bash
As I don't think bash is installed in /usr/bin in most cases. But you need to try. To figure out where bash is installed use which bash
Another option is to use the hostname binary:
CURRENT_HOSTNAME=$(hostname)
echo $CURRENT_HOSTNAME
Which works in both bash and sh.
You can start sh by just running sh. You will see it has a bash-like terminal. You can try to do echo $HOSTNAME. It will not show, because it's not there. You can use set to see all the variables that are there (as sh does not have tab completion it's harder to figure out).

Strange behaviour for echo with -e flag passed to bash with -c flag

I cannot understand the behaviour of this bash script (which I cut it out of a longer real use case):
# This is test.sh
cmd="echo -e \"\n\n\n\t===== Hello World =====\n\n\""
sh -c "$cmd"
What it prints is:
$ ./test.sh
-e
===== Hello World =====
$
If I remove the -e flag, everything is printed correctly, with quoted chars correctly interpreted and without the '-e' spoil: but it shouldn't be like that.
My bash is: GNU bash, version 3.2.57(1)-release (x86_64-apple-darwin17), under macOS.
In Posix mode (when run as sh), bash 3.2's echo command takes no options; -e is just another argument to write to standard output. Compare:
$ bash -c 'echo -e "a\tb"'
a b
$ sh -c 'echo -e "a\tb"'
-e a b
A literal tab is printed in both cases because Posix echo behaves the same as bash echo -e.
For this reason, printf is almost always better to use than echo to provide consistent behavior.
cmd='printf "\n\n\n\t===== Hello World =====\n\n"'
sh -c "$cmd"
sh-4.2# cat test.sh
cmd="echo -e \"\n\n\n\t===== Hello World =====\n\n\""
sh -c "$cmd"
sh-4.2# ./test.sh
===== Hello World =====
sh-4.2#
It is getting printed correctly on my machine
OK, I think I found it myself, from here:
sh, the Bourne shell, is old. Its behaviour is specified by the POSIX standard. If you want new behaviour, you use bash, the Bourne Again shell, which gets new features added to it all the time. On many systems, sh is just bash, and bash turns on a compatibility mode when run under that name.
Groan...

Which shell does Perl 6's shell() use?

Perl 6's shell sends commands to the "shell" but doesn't say what that is. I consistently get bash on my machine but I don't know if I can rely on that.
$ perl6 -e 'shell( Q/echo $SHELL/ )'
/bin/bash
$ csh
% perl6 -e 'shell( Q/echo $SHELL/ )'
/bin/bash
% zsh
$ perl6 -e 'shell( Q/echo $SHELL/ )'
/bin/bash
That's easy enough on Unix when it's documented, but what about cmd.exe or PowerShell on Windows (or bash if it's installed)? I figure it's the cmd.exe but a documented answer would be nice.
Looking at the source, rakudo just calls /bin/sh -c on non-windows and uses %*ENV<ComSpec> /c on windows.
dash (installed as /bin/sh on many systems), doesn't set $SHELL, nor should it. $SHELL isn't the name of the parent process; it's the name of the shell that should be used when an interactive shell is desired.
To get the name of the parent process, you could use the following on some systems:
echo "$0"
or
# Command line
perl -e'$ppid=getppid(); #ARGV="/proc/$ppid/cmdline"; CORE::say "".<>'
or
# Program file
perl -e'$ppid=getppid(); CORE::say readlink("/proc/$ppid/exe")'
You'll find you'll get /bin/sh in all cases.

Blank first line of shell script: explain behavior of UID variable

I have two very simple scripts, differing only by the presence of a blank first line:
$ cat test.bash
#!/bin/bash
echo ${UID}
$ cat test_blank.bash
#!/bin/bash
echo ${UID}
Now I run then, with and without nice:
$ ./test.bash
1060
$ ./test_blank.bash
1060
$ nice ./test.bash
1060
$ nice ./test_blank.bash
Please explain why, in the final case, the UID variable is unset. The behavior is the same when replacing nice with sudo or nohup.
Observe:
$ bash test_blank.bash
1060
$ dash test_blank.bash
bash produces output but dash, which is the default sh on debian-like systems, does not. This is because bash sets UID but dash does not. (POSIX does not require a shell to set UID.) So, the question becomes which shell executes the script.
When bash sees ./test.sh, it (bash) runs the script. When another command, such as nice, receives the script as an argument and the script does not have a valid shebang as the first line, then the default shell, likely dash, is run.
If you want UID in dash, or any other shell that does not provide it, use the id command:
UID=$(id -u)
Finding out which shell is running a script
To see which shell is running a script, use:
$ cat test2.sh
#!/bin/bash
ps $$
echo UID=${UID}
Under bash:
$ ./test2.sh
PID TTY STAT TIME COMMAND
1652 pts/12 S+ 0:00 bash -rcfile .bashrc
UID=1060
If we invoke it using nice, by contrast, we can see that it is running under /bin/sh and the UID variable is not assigned:
$ nice test2.sh
PID TTY STAT TIME COMMAND
1659 pts/12 SN+ 0:00 /bin/sh test2.sh
UID=

Bash: Syntax error: redirection unexpected

I do this in a script:
read direc <<< $(basename `pwd`)
and I get:
Syntax error: redirection unexpected
in an ubuntu machine
/bin/bash --version
GNU bash, version 4.0.33(1)-release (x86_64-pc-linux-gnu)
while I do not get this error in another suse machine:
/bin/bash --version
GNU bash, version 3.2.39(1)-release (x86_64-suse-linux-gnu)
Copyright (C) 2007 Free Software Foundation, Inc.
Why the error?
Does your script reference /bin/bash or /bin/sh in its hash bang line? The default system shell in Ubuntu is dash, not bash, so if you have #!/bin/sh then your script will be using a different shell than you expect. Dash does not have the <<< redirection operator.
Make sure the shebang line is:
#!/bin/bash
or
#!/usr/bin/env bash
And run the script with:
$ ./script.sh
Do not run it with an explicit sh as that will ignore the shebang:
$ sh ./script.sh # Don't do this!
If you're using the following to run your script:
sudo sh ./script.sh
Then you'll want to use the following instead:
sudo bash ./script.sh
The reason for this is that Bash is not the default shell for Ubuntu. So, if you use "sh" then it will just use the default shell; which is actually Dash. This will happen regardless if you have #!/bin/bash at the top of your script. As a result, you will need to explicitly specify to use bash as shown above, and your script should run at expected.
Dash doesn't support redirects the same as Bash.
Docker:
I was getting this problem from my Dockerfile as I had:
RUN bash < <(curl -s -S -L https://raw.githubusercontent.com/moovweb/gvm/master/binscripts/gvm-installer)
However, according to this issue, it was solved:
The exec form makes it possible to avoid shell string munging, and
to RUN commands using a base image that does not contain /bin/sh.
Note
To use a different shell, other than /bin/sh, use the exec form
passing in the desired shell. For example,
RUN ["/bin/bash", "-c", "echo hello"]
Solution:
RUN ["/bin/bash", "-c", "bash < <(curl -s -S -L https://raw.githubusercontent.com/moovweb/gvm/master/binscripts/gvm-installer)"]
Notice the quotes around each parameter.
You can get the output of that command and put it in a variable. then use heredoc. for example:
nc -l -p 80 <<< "tested like a charm";
can be written like:
nc -l -p 80 <<EOF
tested like a charm
EOF
and like this (this is what you want):
text="tested like a charm"
nc -l -p 80 <<EOF
$text
EOF
Practical example in busybox under docker container:
kasra#ubuntu:~$ docker run --rm -it busybox
/ # nc -l -p 80 <<< "tested like a charm";
sh: syntax error: unexpected redirection
/ # nc -l -p 80 <<EOL
> tested like a charm
> EOL
^Cpunt! => socket listening, no errors. ^Cpunt! is result of CTRL+C signal.
/ # text="tested like a charm"
/ # nc -l -p 80 <<EOF
> $text
> EOF
^Cpunt!
do it the simpler way,
direc=$(basename `pwd`)
Or use the shell
$ direc=${PWD##*/}
Another reason to the error may be if you are running a cron job that updates a subversion working copy and then has attempted to run a versioned script that was in a conflicted state after the update...
On my machine, if I run a script directly, the default is bash.
If I run it with sudo, the default is sh.
That’s why I was hitting this problem when I used sudo.
In my case error is because i have put ">>" twice
mongodump --db=$DB_NAME --collection=$col --out=$BACKUP_LOCATION/$DB_NAME-$BACKUP_DATE >> >> $LOG_PATH
i just correct it as
mongodump --db=$DB_NAME --collection=$col --out=$BACKUP_LOCATION/$DB_NAME-$BACKUP_DATE >> $LOG_PATH
Before running the script, you should check first line of the shell script for the interpreter.
Eg:
if scripts starts with /bin/bash , run the script using the below command
"bash script_name.sh"
if script starts with /bin/sh, run the script using the below command
"sh script_name.sh"
./sample.sh - This will detect the interpreter from the first line of the script and run.
Different Linux distributions having different shells as default.

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