bash: run multiple commands each separately with a command prompt - bash

I want to run multiple commands like they are executed one at a time on command prompt
Eg i have the following list of commands
ls
pwd
du -sh
Now i try to copy paste them and run:
$ ls
pwd
du -sh
file1.txt file2.txt
/home/user/test
1M .
but instead i want to get them executed separately. So that i can see their outputs like below
$ ls
file1.txt file2.txt
$ pwd
/home/user/test
$ du -sh
1M .
So is it possible if i a have a list of commands to paste them in such a way that they can execute as if one per command prompt. Else the only option is paste one command at a time.
Generally i get a list of commands to get executed.

While pasting essentially works the way you describe, it may end up looking cosmetically wrong when the input (and its local echo) shows up while the shell is still busy executing the previous command.
You could instead feed the commands to bash -i, which will read and execute them in turn, showing the prompt:
$ mypaste() { x="$(cat)"; bash -i <<< "$x"; }
$ mypaste # Now paste some commands and hit ctrl-d
ls
pwd
whoami
^D
This results in:
you#yourdir $ ls
some files
you#yourdir $ pwd
/home/you/yourdir
you#yourdir $ whoami
you
you#yourdir $ exit
$

nano myscript.sh or your favorite editor and paste the following.
#!/bin/bash
ls
pwd
du -sh
make it executable with chmod +x myscript.sh and run the script with
./myscript.sh
You can run any bash commands and see outputs

Try each command separated by semicolon:
ls; pwd; du -sh;
This will make it batch of commands. Shell will execute one by one and you don't have to paste each command separately.
Hope this helps.

The answer from that other guy worked and I used a slightly modified version using heredoc.
I wanted to script a sequence of commands that show the prompt so I could copy/paste on different systems and show how to replicate a bug.
simple version
bash -i << 'EOF'
echo "command one"
echo "command two"
EOF
more commands and pretty output
bash -i << 'EOF' && echo -e '\e[1A\e[K==========================================='
unset PROMPT_COMMAND; PS1='command-sequence:$ ' ; clear ; echo "==========================================="
mkdir /tmp/demo-commands
echo "file contents" > /tmp/demo-commands/file
cd /tmp/demo-commands
pwd
ls
cat file
rm file
rm -r /tmp/demo-commands
EOF
I customize the prompt and use echo -e '\e[1A\e[K to replace the last line with a separator

Related

How to pass argument in bash pipe from terminal

i have a bash script show below in a file called test.sh
#!/usr/bin/env bash
echo $1
echo "execution done"
when i execute this script using
Case-1
./test.sh "started"
started
execution done
showing properly
Case-2
If i execute with
bash test.sh "started"
i'm getting the out put as
started
execution done
But i would like to execute this using a cat or wget command with arguments
For example like.
Q1
cat test.sh |bash
Or using a command
Q2
wget -qO - "url contain bash" |bash
So in Q1 and Q2 how do i pass argument
Something simlar to this shown in this github
https://github.com/creationix/nvm
Please refer installation script
$ bash <(curl -Ls url_contains_bash_script) arg1 arg2
Explanation:
$ echo -e 'echo "$1"\necho "done"' >test.sh
$ cat test.sh
echo "$1"
echo "done"
$ bash <(cat test.sh) "hello"
hello
done
$ bash <(echo -e 'echo "$1"\necho "done"') "hello"
hello
done
You don't need to pipe to bash; bash runs as standard in your terminal.
If I have a script and I have to use cat, this is what I'll do:
cat script.sh > file.sh; chmod 755 file.sh; ./file.sh arg1 arg2 arg3
script.sh is the source script. You can replace that call with anything you want.
This has security implications though; just running an arbitrary code in your shell - especially with wget where the code comes from a remote location.

Bash script - Run commands that correspond to the lines of a file

I have a file like this (text.txt):
ls -al
ps -au
export COP=5
clear
Each line corresponds at a command. In my script, I need to read each line and launch each command.
ps: I tried all these options and with all of them I have the same problem with the command "export". In the file there is "export COP=5", but after running the script, if I do echo $COP in the same terminal, no value is displayed
while IFS= read line; do eval $line; done < text.txt
Be careful about it, it's generally not advised to use eval as it's quite powerful and as easy to be abused.
However, if there is no risk of influence from unprivileged users on text.txt it should be ok.
cat test.txt | xargs -l1 bash -c '"$#"' echo
In order to avoid confusion I would simply rename the file from text.txt to text and add a shebang (e.g. #!/bin/bash) as the first line of the file. Make sure it is executable by calling chmod +x text. Afterwards you can execute it as expected.
$ cat text
#!/bin/bash
ls -al
ps -au
clear
$ chmod +x text
$ ./text

How to refer to redirection file from within a bash script?

I'd like to write a bash script myscript such that issuing this command:
myscript > filename.txt
would return the name of the filename that it's output is being redirected to, filename.txt. Is this possible?
If you are running on Linux, check where /proc/self/fd/1 links to.
For example, the script can do the following:
#!/bin/bash
readlink /proc/self/fd/1
And then run it:
$ ./myscript > filename.txt
$ cat filename.txt
/tmp/filename.txt
Note that if you want to save the value of the output file to a variable or something, you can't use /proc/self since it will be different in the subshell, but you can still use $$:
outputfile=$(readlink /proc/$$/fd/1)
Using lsof:
outfile=$(lsof -p $$ | awk '/1w/{print $NF}')
echo $outfile

Update shell command history from within bash script

I use control-r on the command line frequently to search for previous commands but cannot get this to work for commands that have just been run in a bash script.
I've tried running the script directly and using 'source' but history shows no record.
Is there anyway to get history updated via a script?
You can try using history -s command to store the command in the history list.
Example:
$ history -s echo foo
[Ctrl+R]
(reverse-i-search)`foo': echo foo
Alternatively, write your commands to a file and then use history -n file to read commands from the file into the current history list.
Example:
$ echo "echo bar" > /tmp/file
$ history -n /tmp/file
[Ctrl+R]
(reverse-i-search)`bar': echo bar

How to invoke bash, run commands inside the new shell, and then give control back to user?

This must either be really simple or really complex, but I couldn't find anything about it... I am trying to open a new bash instance, then run a few commands inside it, and give the control back to the user inside that same instance.
I tried:
$ bash -lic "some_command"
but this executes some_command inside the new instance, then closes it. I want it to stay open.
One more detail which might affect answers: if I can get this to work I will use it in my .bashrc as alias(es), so bonus points for an alias implementation!
bash --rcfile <(echo '. ~/.bashrc; some_command')
dispenses the creation of temporary files. Question on other sites:
https://serverfault.com/questions/368054/run-an-interactive-bash-subshell-with-initial-commands-without-returning-to-the
https://unix.stackexchange.com/questions/123103/how-to-keep-bash-running-after-command-execution
This is a late answer, but I had the exact same problem and Google sent me to this page, so for completeness here is how I got around the problem.
As far as I can tell, bash does not have an option to do what the original poster wanted to do. The -c option will always return after the commands have been executed.
Broken solution: The simplest and obvious attempt around this is:
bash -c 'XXXX ; bash'
This partly works (albeit with an extra sub-shell layer). However, the problem is that while a sub-shell will inherit the exported environment variables, aliases and functions are not inherited. So this might work for some things but isn't a general solution.
Better: The way around this is to dynamically create a startup file and call bash with this new initialization file, making sure that your new init file calls your regular ~/.bashrc if necessary.
# Create a temporary file
TMPFILE=$(mktemp)
# Add stuff to the temporary file
echo "source ~/.bashrc" > $TMPFILE
echo "<other commands>" >> $TMPFILE
echo "rm -f $TMPFILE" >> $TMPFILE
# Start the new bash shell
bash --rcfile $TMPFILE
The nice thing is that the temporary init file will delete itself as soon as it is used, reducing the risk that it is not cleaned up correctly.
Note: I'm not sure if /etc/bashrc is usually called as part of a normal non-login shell. If so you might want to source /etc/bashrc as well as your ~/.bashrc.
You can pass --rcfile to Bash to cause it to read a file of your choice. This file will be read instead of your .bashrc. (If that's a problem, source ~/.bashrc from the other script.)
Edit: So a function to start a new shell with the stuff from ~/.more.sh would look something like:
more() { bash --rcfile ~/.more.sh ; }
... and in .more.sh you would have the commands you want to execute when the shell starts. (I suppose it would be elegant to avoid a separate startup file -- you cannot use standard input because then the shell will not be interactive, but you could create a startup file from a here document in a temporary location, then read it.)
bash -c '<some command> ; exec /bin/bash'
will avoid additional shell sublayer
You can get the functionality you want by sourcing the script instead of running it. eg:
$cat script
cmd1
cmd2
$ . script
$ at this point cmd1 and cmd2 have been run inside this shell
Append to ~/.bashrc a section like this:
if [ "$subshell" = 'true' ]
then
# commands to execute only on a subshell
date
fi
alias sub='subshell=true bash'
Then you can start the subshell with sub.
The accepted answer is really helpful! Just to add that process substitution (i.e., <(COMMAND)) is not supported in some shells (e.g., dash).
In my case, I was trying to create a custom action (basically a one-line shell script) in Thunar file manager to start a shell and activate the selected Python virtual environment. My first attempt was:
urxvt -e bash --rcfile <(echo ". $HOME/.bashrc; . %f/bin/activate;")
where %f is the path to the virtual environment handled by Thunar.
I got an error (by running Thunar from command line):
/bin/sh: 1: Syntax error: "(" unexpected
Then I realized that my sh (essentially dash) does not support process substitution.
My solution was to invoke bash at the top level to interpret the process substitution, at the expense of an extra level of shell:
bash -c 'urxvt -e bash --rcfile <(echo "source $HOME/.bashrc; source %f/bin/activate;")'
Alternatively, I tried to use here-document for dash but with no success. Something like:
echo -e " <<EOF\n. $HOME/.bashrc; . %f/bin/activate;\nEOF\n" | xargs -0 urxvt -e bash --rcfile
P.S.: I do not have enough reputation to post comments, moderators please feel free to move it to comments or remove it if not helpful with this question.
With accordance with the answer by daveraja, here is a bash script which will solve the purpose.
Consider a situation if you are using C-shell and you want to execute a command
without leaving the C-shell context/window as follows,
Command to be executed: Search exact word 'Testing' in current directory recursively only in *.h, *.c files
grep -nrs --color -w --include="*.{h,c}" Testing ./
Solution 1: Enter into bash from C-shell and execute the command
bash
grep -nrs --color -w --include="*.{h,c}" Testing ./
exit
Solution 2: Write the intended command into a text file and execute it using bash
echo 'grep -nrs --color -w --include="*.{h,c}" Testing ./' > tmp_file.txt
bash tmp_file.txt
Solution 3: Run command on the same line using bash
bash -c 'grep -nrs --color -w --include="*.{h,c}" Testing ./'
Solution 4: Create a sciprt (one-time) and use it for all future commands
alias ebash './execute_command_on_bash.sh'
ebash grep -nrs --color -w --include="*.{h,c}" Testing ./
The script is as follows,
#!/bin/bash
# =========================================================================
# References:
# https://stackoverflow.com/a/13343457/5409274
# https://stackoverflow.com/a/26733366/5409274
# https://stackoverflow.com/a/2853811/5409274
# https://stackoverflow.com/a/2853811/5409274
# https://www.linuxquestions.org/questions/other-%2Anix-55/how-can-i-run-a-command-on-another-shell-without-changing-the-current-shell-794580/
# https://www.tldp.org/LDP/abs/html/internalvariables.html
# https://stackoverflow.com/a/4277753/5409274
# =========================================================================
# Enable following line to see the script commands
# getting printing along with their execution. This will help for debugging.
#set -o verbose
E_BADARGS=85
if [ ! -n "$1" ]
then
echo "Usage: `basename $0` grep -nrs --color -w --include=\"*.{h,c}\" Testing ."
echo "Usage: `basename $0` find . -name \"*.txt\""
exit $E_BADARGS
fi
# Create a temporary file
TMPFILE=$(mktemp)
# Add stuff to the temporary file
#echo "echo Hello World...." >> $TMPFILE
#initialize the variable that will contain the whole argument string
argList=""
#iterate on each argument
for arg in "$#"
do
#if an argument contains a white space, enclose it in double quotes and append to the list
#otherwise simply append the argument to the list
if echo $arg | grep -q " "; then
argList="$argList \"$arg\""
else
argList="$argList $arg"
fi
done
#remove a possible trailing space at the beginning of the list
argList=$(echo $argList | sed 's/^ *//')
# Echoing the command to be executed to tmp file
echo "$argList" >> $TMPFILE
# Note: This should be your last command
# Important last command which deletes the tmp file
last_command="rm -f $TMPFILE"
echo "$last_command" >> $TMPFILE
#echo "---------------------------------------------"
#echo "TMPFILE is $TMPFILE as follows"
#cat $TMPFILE
#echo "---------------------------------------------"
check_for_last_line=$(tail -n 1 $TMPFILE | grep -o "$last_command")
#echo $check_for_last_line
#if tail -n 1 $TMPFILE | grep -o "$last_command"
if [ "$check_for_last_line" == "$last_command" ]
then
#echo "Okay..."
bash $TMPFILE
exit 0
else
echo "Something is wrong"
echo "Last command in your tmp file should be removing itself"
echo "Aborting the process"
exit 1
fi
$ bash --init-file <(echo 'some_command')
$ bash --rcfile <(echo 'some_command')
In case you can't or don't want to use process substitution:
$ cat script
some_command
$ bash --init-file script
Another way:
$ bash -c 'some_command; exec bash'
$ sh -c 'some_command; exec sh'
sh-only way (dash, busybox):
$ ENV=script sh
Here is yet another (working) variant:
This opens a new gnome terminal, then in the new terminal it runs bash. The user's rc file is read first, then a command ls -la is sent for execution to the new shell before it turns interactive.
The last echo adds an extra newline that is needed to finish execution.
gnome-terminal -- bash -c 'bash --rcfile <( cat ~/.bashrc; echo ls -la ; echo)'
I also find it useful sometimes to decorate the terminal, e.g. with colorfor better orientation.
gnome-terminal --profile green -- bash -c 'bash --rcfile <( cat ~/.bashrc; echo ls -la ; echo)'

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