Bash function not executing the input command - bash

Question

In a bash file s.sh, I have an Executor function to which I pass the commands to be executed. Whenever some command does not work as expected, this function outputs the command.
Executor()
{
if ! $*
then
echo "$*"
exit 2
fi
}
Now I am invoking this function -
Executor clangPath="Hello" make (This is used to set the value of clangPath variable as "Hello" in the makefile)
This caused an error -
./s.sh: line 5: clangPath=Hello: command not found
[./s.sh] Error: clangPath=Hello make
However executing the same command like this works fine
if ! clangPath="Hello" make
then
echo "HelloWorld!"
fi
After looking at the error, I thought there might be a mistake with the string quotations, so I tried
exitIfFail clangPath='"Hello"' make
Even this resulted in an error -
./s.sh: line 5: clangPath="Hello": command not found
[./s.sh] Error: clangPath="Hello" make
What could be the reason for the error?

Answer 1

If the purpose of the function is to execute some Bash expression, then print an error message, if the expression failed (returned non-zero status), then, there is a way to implement this via eval:
#!/bin/bash -
function Executor()
{
eval "$#"
if [ $? -ne 0 ]
then
echo >&2 "Failed to execute command: $#"
exit 2
fi
}
The $? variable holds the exit status of the previously executed command. So we check if it is non-zero.
Also note how we redirect the error message to the standard error descriptor.
Usage:
Executor ls -lh /tmp/unknown-something
ls: cannot access /tmp/unknown-something: No such file or directory
Failed to execute command: ls -lh /tmp/unknown-something
Executor ls -lh /tmp
# some file listing here...
The $# variable is more appropriate here, as eval interprets things itself. See $* and $#.