How to syntax check a shell script before sourcing it? - bash

Question

I want to run this command source .env (sourcing a .env file) and if the .env file had some errors while sourcing. I want to show a message before the error output "Hey you got errors in your .env" else if there's no error, I don't want to show anything.
Here's a code sample that needs editing:
#!/bin/zsh
env_auto_sourcing() {
if [[ -f .env ]]; then
OUTPUT="$(source .env &> /dev/null)"
echo "${OUTPUT}"
if [ -n "$OUTPUT" ]; then
echo "Hey you got errors in your .env"
echo "$OUTPUT"
fi
}

Answer 1

You could use bash -n (zsh has has a -n option as well) to syntax check your script before sourcing it:
env_auto_sourcing() {
if [[ -f .env ]]; then
if errs=$(bash -n .env 2>&1);
then source .env;
else
printf '%s\n' "Hey you got errors" "$errs";
fi
fi
}
Storing the syntax check errors in a file is a little cleaner than the subshell approach you have used in your code.
bash -n has a few pitfalls as seen here:
How do I check syntax in bash without running the script?

Answer 2

Why not just use the exit code from the command source ?
You don't have to use bash -n for this because ...
If let's say your .env file contains these 2 invalid lines:
dsadsd
sdss
If you run your current accepted code using the example above:
if errs=$(bash -n .env 2>&1);
the above condition will fail to stop the file from sourcing.
So, you can use source command return code to handle all of this:
#!/bin/bash
# This doesn't actually source it. It just test if source is working
errs=$(source ".env" 2>&1 >/dev/null)
# get the return code
retval=$?
#echo "${retval}"
if [ ${retval} = 0 ]; then
# Do another check for any syntax error
if [ -n "${errs}" ]; then
echo "The source file returns 0 but you got syntax errors: "
echo "Error details:"
printf "%s\n" "${errs}"
exit 1
else
# Success here. we know that this command works without error so we source it
echo "The source file returns 0 and no syntax errors: "
source ".env"
fi
else
echo "The source command returns an error code ${retval}: "
echo "Error details:"
printf "%s\n" "${errs}"
exit 1
fi
The best thing with this approach is, it will check both bash syntax and source syntax as well:
Now you can test this data in your env file:
-
~
#
~<
>