Passing -e and -n as positional parameters in Bash - bash

I've recently been working with positional parameters in some bash scripts and I've noticed that -e and -n do not appear to be passed as positional parameters. I've been searching through documentation but haven't been able to figure out why. Consider the following short scripts:
#!/bin/bash
# test.sh
echo $#
echo $1
echo $2
echo $3
echo $4
echo $5
exit
Running the command: # ./test.sh -e -f -c -n -g outputs:
-f -c -n -g
-f
-c
-g
./test.sh -n -f -c -e -g outputs:
-f -c -e -g-f
-c
-g
Why do -e and -n not appear in "$#"? -e appears to pass as an empty parameter and -n appears to remove the following endline. Furthermore I noticed that these parameters are accounted for when echoing $#. Does anyone know why -e and -n behave differently than any other parameters.

The -e is passed like an argument to echo and then is comsumed by it.
Try this instead :
#!/bin/bash
printf '%s\n' "$1"
printf '%s\n' "$2"
printf '%s\n' "$3"
printf '%s\n' "$4"
printf '%s\n' "$5"
Output :
-e
-f
-c
-n
-g
Check help echo | less +/-e
You can use :
echo -- "$1"
too
Another solution
using bash here document
#!/bin/bash
cat<<EOF
$1
$2
$3
$4
$5
EOF

Related

How to make runuser correctly forward all command line arguments, instead of trying to interpret them?

I got this simple script:
#!/bin/bash
SOURCE_USER=$USER
DESTINE_USER=$1
id -u $SOURCE_USER > /dev/null 2>&1
if [ "$?" == "1" ] || [ -z $SOURCE_USER ]
then
printf "Error: Invalid source user '$SOURCE_USER'\\n"
exit 1
fi
if [ -z $DESTINE_USER ]
then
printf "Error: Invalid destine user '$DESTINE_USER'\\n"
exit 1
fi
SOURCE_GROUPS=$(id -Gn ${SOURCE_USER} | sed "s/${SOURCE_USER} //g" | sed "s/ ${SOURCE_USER}//g" | sed "s/ /,/g")
SOURCE_SHELL=$(awk -F : -v name=${SOURCE_USER} '(name == $1) { print $7 }' /etc/passwd)
id -u $DESTINE_USER > /dev/null 2>&1
if [ "$?" == "1" ]
then
printf "Creating destine user %s\\n" "$DESTINE_USER"
useradd --groups ${SOURCE_GROUPS} --shell ${SOURCE_SHELL} --create-home ${DESTINE_USER}
passwd ${DESTINE_USER}
xhost '+si:localuser:$DESTINE_USER'
sudo usermod -G "$SOURCE_USER" "$DESTINE_USER"
else
printf "Updating destine user '%s' with groups '%s' and shell '%s'\\n" "$DESTINE_USER" "$SOURCE_GROUPS" "$SOURCE_SHELL"
sudo usermod -a -G "$SOURCE_GROUPS" "$DESTINE_USER"
sudo chsh -s "$SOURCE_SHELL" "$SOURCE_USER"
fi
sudo runuser sublime_vanilla -c "${#:2}"
I run it like this:
$ bash run_as_user.sh sublime_vanilla /usr/bin/subl -n "./New Empty File"
But when I run it, I got this error:
runuser: invalid option -- 'n'
Try 'runuser --help' for more information.
But if I replace sudo runuser sublime_vanilla -c "${#:2}" with sudo runuser sublime_vanilla -c "\"$2\" \"$3\" \"$4\" \"$5\" \"$6\" \"$7\" \"$8\" \"${#:9}\""
Then, Sublime Text correctly opens the file "./New Empty File" in a new window.
How to make runuser correctly understand all argument with a variable number of command line arguments, i.e., without hard coding "\"$2\" \"$3\" \"$4\" ..."?
This is slightly different from your last question because you have to make the expansion of the arguments into a single string for the -c option.
The bash printf formatter %q is your friend here:
cmd=$( printf '%q ' "${#:2}" )
sudo runuser sublime_vanilla -c "$cmd"
On the other hand, a quick perusal through the runuser man page suggests:
sudo runuser -u sublime_vanilla "${#:2}"
Another thought: sudo runuser -u sublime_vanilla -- "${#:2}" with the double hyphens to indicate the end of the runuser options.

Grep is not showing results even i used fgrep and -f options

I have used the below content to fetch some values .
But the grep in the code is not showing any results.
#!/bin/bash
file=test.txt
while IFS= read -r cmd;
do
check_address=`grep -c $cmd music.cpp`
if [ $check_address -ge 1 ]; then
echo
else
grep -i -n "$cmd" music.cpp
echo $cmd found
fi
done < "$file"
Note : there are no carriage return in my text file or .sh file.
i checked using
bash -x check.sh
It is just showing
+grep -i -n "$cmd" music.cpp

UNIX shell scripting if and grep command

currently I'm working on a code :
egrep '("$1"|"$2")' Cities.txt > test.txt
if [ $# -eq 1] && grep -q "$1" test.txt ; then
grep $1 Cities.txt
elif [ $# -eq 2 ] && egrep -q '("$1"|"$2")' test.txt ; then
egrep '("$1"|"$2")' Cities.txt > $2.txt
else $1 not found on Cities.txt
fi
exit
basically, it lets user to enter 1 or 2 arguments and the argument(s) is/are used as a grep pattern in Cities.txt and redirect the output to a file named test.txt
If the user entered 1 argument and the argument matched the content of the test.txt , then it display the lines that contain argument 1 on file Cities.txt.
If the user entered 2 argument and both argument matched the content of the file test.txt, then it matched both argument in Cities.txt and redirect the output to the file named by the user's second argument.
I couldn't seem to get the code to work, may be some of you guys could help me inspect the error.
thanks
egrep "($1|$2)" Cities.txt > test.txt # change single quote to double quote
if [ $# -eq 1 ] && grep -q -- "$1" test.txt ; then
grep -- "$1" Cities.txt
elif [ $# -eq 2 ] && egrep -q -- "($1|$2)" test.txt ; then
egrep -- "($1|$2)" Cities.txt > $2.txt
else
$1 not found on Cities.txt
fi
This greatly changes the semantics, but I believe is what you are trying to do. I've added -- to try to make this slightly robust, but if either argument contains metacharacters for the regex this will fail. But you could try:
if test $# -eq 1 && grep -F -q -e "$1" test.txt ; then
grep -F -e "$1" Cities.txt
elif [ $# -eq 2 ] && grep -q -F -e "$1" -e "$2" test.txt; then
grep -F -e "$1" -e "$2" Cities.txt > $2.txt
else
$1 not found on Cities.txt >&2
fi

Bash - output of command seems to be an integer but "[" complains

I am checking to see if a process on a remote server has been killed. The code I'm using is:
if [ `ssh -t -t -i id_dsa headless#remoteserver.com "ps -auxwww |grep pipeline| wc -l" | sed -e 's/^[ \t]*//'` -lt 3 ]
then
echo "PIPELINE STOPPED SUCCESSFULLY"
exit 0
else
echo "PIPELINE WAS NOT STOPPED SUCCESSFULLY"
exit 1
fi
However when I execute this I get:
: integer expression expected
PIPELINE WAS NOT STOPPED SUCCESSFULLY
1
The actual value returned is "1" with no whitespace. I checked that by:
vim <(ssh -t -t -i id_dsa headless#remoteserver.com "ps -auxwww |grep pipeline| wc -l" | sed -e 's/^[ \t]*//')
and then ":set list" which showed only the integer and a line feed as the returned value.
I'm at a loss here as to why this is not working.
If the output of the ssh command is truly just an integer preceded by optional tabs, then you shouldn't need the sed command; the shell will strip the leading and/or trailing whitespace as unnecessary before using it as an operand for the -lt operator.
if [ $(ssh -tti id_dsa headless#remoteserver.com "ps -auxwww | grep -c pipeline") -lt 3 ]; then
It is possible that result of the ssh is not the same when you run it manually as when it runs in the shell. You might try saving it in a variable so you can output it before testing it in your script:
result=$( ssh -tti id_dsa headless#remoteserver.com "ps -auxwww | grep -c pipeline" )
if [ $result -lt 3 ];
The return value you get is not entirely a digit. Maybe some shell-metacharacter/linefeed/whatever gets into your way here:
#!/bin/bash
var=$(ssh -t -t -i id_dsa headless#remoteserver.com "ps auxwww |grep -c pipeline")
echo $var
# just to prove my point here
# Remove all digits, and look wether there is a rest -> then its not integer
test -z "$var" -o -n "`echo $var | tr -d '[0-9]'`" && echo not-integer
# get out all the digits to use them for the arithmetic comparison
var2=$(grep -o "[0-9]" <<<"$var")
echo $var2
if [[ $var2 -lt 3 ]]
then
echo "PIPELINE STOPPED SUCCESSFULLY"
exit 0
else
echo "PIPELINE WAS NOT STOPPED SUCCESSFULLY"
exit 1
fi
As user mbratch noticed I was getting a "\r" in the returned value in addition to the expected "\n". So I changed my sed script so that it stripped out the "\r" instead of the whitespace (which chepner pointed out was unnecessary).
sed -e 's/\r*$//'

Why is my awk print not showing up on the terminal

I have the following script which does a "which -a" on a command then a "ls -l" to let me know if it's a link or not .. ie "grep" since I have gnu commands installed (Mac with iTerm).
#!/usr/bin/env bash
which -a $1 | xargs -I{} ls -l "{}" \
| awk '{for (i = 1; i < 9; i++) $i = ""; sub(/^ */, ""); print}'
When I run this from the script "test grep" I receive no output, but when I run it via "bash -x test grep" I receive the following:
bash -x test grep
+ which -a grep
+ xargs '-I{}' ls -l '{}'
+ awk '{for (i = 1; i < 9; i++) $i = ""; sub(/^ */, ""); print}'
/usr/local/bin/grep -> ../Cellar/grep/3.1/bin/grep
/usr/bin/grep
The last 2 lines is what I'm looking to display. Thought this would be easier to do ;-) .. I also tried appending the pipe thinking printf would fix the issue:
| while read path
do
printf "%s\n" "$path"
done
Thanks and .. Is there a better way to get what I need?
The problem is that you named your script test.
If you want to run a command that's not in your PATH, you need to specify the directory it's in, e.g. ./test.
You're not getting an error for trying to run test because there is a built-in bash command called test that is used instead. For extra confusion, the standard test produces no output.
In conclusion:
Use ./ to run scripts in the current directory.
Never call your test programs test.
Thanks for the never naming a script "test" .. old habits are hard to break (I came from a non-unix background.
I ended with the following
for i in $(which -a $1)
do
stat $i | awk NR==1{'$1 = ""; sub(/^ */, ""); print}'
done
or simpler
for i in $(which -a $1)
do
stat -c %N "$i"
done
Consider the following shell function:
cmdsrc() {
local cmd_file cmd_file_realpath
case $(type -t -- "$1") in
file) cmd_file=$(type -P -- "$1")
if [[ -L "$cmd_file" ]]; then
echo "$cmd_file is a symlink" >&2
elif [[ -f "$cmd_file" ]]; then
echo "$cmd_file is a regular file" >&2
else
echo "$cmd_file is not a symlink or a regular file" >&2
fi
cmd_file_realpath=$(readlink -- "$cmd_file") || return
if [[ $cmd_file_realpath != "$cmd_file" ]]; then
echo "...the real location of the executable is $cmd_file_realpath" >&2
fi
;;
*) echo "$1 is not a file at all: $(type -- "$1")" >&2 ;;
esac
}
...used as such:
$ cmdsrc apt
/usr/bin/apt is a symlink
...the real location of the executable is /System/Library/Frameworks/JavaVM.framework/Versions/A/Commands/apt
$ cmdsrc ls
/bin/ls is a regular file
$ cmdsrc alias
alias is not a file at all: alias is a shell builtin
Took some suggestions and came up with the following:
The prt-underline is just a fancy printf function. I decided not to go with readline since the ultimate command resolution may be unfamiliar to me and I only deal with regular files .. so does't handle every situation but in the end gives me the output I was looking for. Thanks for all the help.
llt ()
{
case $(type -t -- "$1") in
function)
prt-underline "Function";
declare -f "$1"
;;
alias)
prt-underline "Alias";
alias "$1" | awk '{sub(/^alias /, ""); print}'
;;
keyword)
prt-underline "Reserved Keyword"
;;
builtin)
prt-underline "Builtin Command"
;;
*)
;;
esac;
which "$1" &> /dev/null;
if [[ $? = 0 ]]; then
prt-underline "File";
for i in $(which -a $1);
do
stat "$i" | awk 'NR==1{sub(/^ File: /, ""); print}';
done;
fi
}

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