So I started today taking a look at scripting using vim and I'm just so very lost and was looking for some help in a few areas.
For my first project,I want to process a file as a command line argument, and if a file isn't included when the user executes this script, then a usage message should be displayed, followed by exiting the program.
I have no clue where to even start with that, will I need and if ... then statement, or what?
Save vim for later and try to learn one thing at a time. A simpler text editor is called nano.
Now, as far as checking for a file as an argument, and showing a usage message otherwise, this is a typical pattern:
PROGNAME="$0"
function show_usage()
{
echo "Usage: ${PROGNAME} <filename>" >&2
echo "..." >&2
exit 1
}
if [[ $# -lt 1 ]]; then
show_usage
fi
echo "Contents of ${1}:"
cat "$1"
Let's break this down.
PROGNAME="$0"
$0 is the name of the script, as it was called on the command line.
function show_usage()
{
echo "Usage: ${PROGNAME} <filename>" >&2
echo "..." >&2
exit 1
}
This is the function that prints the "usage" message and exits with a failure status code. 0 is success, anything other than 0 is a failure. Note that we redirect our echo to &2--this prints the usage message on Standard Error rather than Standard Output.
if [[ $# -lt 1 ]]; then
show_usage
fi
$# is the number of arguments passed to the script. If that number is less than 1, print the usage message and exit.
echo "Contents of ${1}:"
cat "$1"
$1 is out filename--the first argument of the script. We can do whatever processing we want to here, with $1 being the filename. Hope this helps!
i think you're asking how to write a bash script that requires a file as a command-line argument, and exits with a usage message if there's a problem with that:
#!/bin/bash
# check if user provided exactly one command-line argument:
if [ $# -ne 1 ]; then
echo "Usage: `basename "$0"` file"
exit 1
# now check if the provided argument corresponds to a real file
elif [ ! -f "$1" ]; then
echo "Error: couldn't find $1."
exit 1
fi
# do things with the file...
stat "$1"
head "$1"
tail "$1"
grep 'xyz' "$1"
Related
I'm new to bash so assume that I don't understand everything in this simple script as I've been putting this together as of today with no prior experience with bash.
I get this error when I run test.sh:
command substitution: line 29: syntax error near unexpected token `$1,'
./f.sh: command substitution: line 29: `index_of($1, $urls))'
FILE: f.sh
#!/bin/bash
urls=( "example.com" "example2.com")
error_exit()
{
echo "$1" 1>&2
exit 1
}
index_of(){
needle=$1
haystack=$2
for i in "${!haystack[#]}"; do
if [[ "${haystack[$i]}" = "${needle}" ]]; then
echo "${i}"
fi
done
echo -1
}
validate_url_param(){
index=-2 #-2 as flag
if [ $# -eq 0 ]; then
error_exit "No url provided. Exiting"
else
index=$(index_of($1, $urls)) #ERROR POINTS TO THIS LINE
if [ $index -eq -1 ]; then
error_exit "Provided url not found in list. Exiting"
fi
fi
echo $index
}
FILE: test.sh
#!/bin/bash
. ./f.sh
index=$(validate_url_param "example.com")
echo $index
echo "${urls[0]}"
I've lost track of all of the tweaks I tried but google is failing me and I'm sure this is some basic stuff so... thanks in advance.
The immediate error, just like the error message tells you, is that shell functions (just like shell scripts) do not require or accept commas between their arguments or parentheses around the argument list. But there are several changes you could make to improve this code.
Here's a refactored version, with inlined comments.
#!/bin/bash
urls=("example.com" "example2.com")
error_exit()
{
# Include script name in error message; echo all parameters
echo "$0: $#" 1>&2
exit 1
}
# A function can't really accept an array. But it's easy to fix:
# make the first argument the needle, and the rest, the haystack.
# Also, mark variables as local
index_of(){
local needle=$1
shift
local i
for ((i=1; i<=$#; ++i)); do
if [[ "${!i}" = "${needle}" ]]; then
echo "${i}"
# Return when you found it
return 0
fi
done
# Don't echo anything on failure; just return false
return 1
}
validate_url_param(){
# global ${urls[#]} is still a bit of a wart
if [ $# -eq 0 ]; then
error_exit "No url provided. Exiting"
else
if ! index_of "$1" "${urls[#]}"; then
error_exit "Provided url not found in list. Exiting"
fi
fi
}
# Just run the function from within the script itself
validate_url_param "example.com"
echo "${urls[0]}"
Notice how the validate_url_param function doesn't capture the output from the function it is calling. index_of simply prints the result to standard output and that's fine, just let that happen and don't intervene. The exit code tells us whether it succeeded or not.
However, reading the URLs into memory is often not useful or necessary. Perhaps you are simply looking for
grep -Fx example.com urls.txt
I'm curious to know if you can pull lines from a function in bash. Say I have this function:
error_fn()
{
echo "You need at least 2 command line arguments!"
echo "Program existing because you said you had a typo, please try agian"
echo "Sorry, one or both of the files that you entered was a directory, please try agian"
echo "Sorry, one or both files were not located, please try again"
}
Is there a way to pull the first echo statement (echo "You need at least 2 command line arguments!") from this array?
I have tried using:
error_fn $1
error_fn ("$1")
but this seems to just output all the echo statements in the function. Any ideas?
You could do your error_fn() similar to the following and pass the index value idx (zero-based, e.g. 0 - 3) as the argument to error_fn()to have the corresponding error output.
error_fn() {
array=( "You need at least 2 command line arguments!"
"Program existing because you said you had a typo, please try agian"
"Sorry, one or both of the files that you entered was a directory, please try agian"
"Sorry, one or both files were not located, please try again" )
idx=$(($1))
if [ '0' -le "$idx" -a "$idx" -le '3' ]
then
printf "error: %s\n" "${array[idx]}"
else
printf "error: function index '%d' out of range.\n" "$idx"
fi
}
Look it over and let me know if you have questions.
As for a general error/usage function, I generally prefer as much of the boiler-plate as possible being in a heredoc while having the ability to pass an error message as well through $1 for the funciton. Example:
usage() {
local ecode=${2:-0} ## set exit code '0' by default
test -n "$1" && printf "\n %s\n" "$1" >&2 ## print error msg (if any)
## heredoc of usage information
cat >&2 << USG
usage: ${0//*\//} _required_input_, etc..
This script ... (give description)
Options:
-h | --help program help (this file)
USG
exit $ecode;
}
It use would be to display usage information by default, display an error in addition to the usage if an error string is given as agrument 1, and finally to set the exit code for the program 0 by default but it will set any numeric argument as the exit code if passed as the second argument. Examples
[ -z "$1" ] && usage "warning: insufficient input." # General usage use.
[ -d "neededdir" ] || mkdir -p neededdir # error on exit and set ecode 2
[ -d "neededdir" } || usage "error: unable to create 'neededdir'." 2
The function is just another command creating output. You may parse it.
error_fn | head -n 1
However, if you rewrite the function to take an argument and to display an error message relating to that argument, it will probably do what you intend it to do:
function error_fn {
err="$1"
case "$err" in
EREFP) echo "Error: refining particles failed" >&2 ;;
ECYCE) echo "Error: number of cycles exceeded" >&2 ;;
EHUPM) echo "Error: hangup misdirected, dangling receiver" >&2 ;;
*) echo "Error: something's wrong (code:$err)" >&2 ;;
esac
}
if ! refine_particles; then
error_fn EREFP
else if ! hang_up_projections; then
error_fn EHUPM
fi
I have a shell script where I pass (2) parameters, one to pass a dbname, the other to call one of (2) filenames. I want to check if either filename exists, then proceed with calling that script, else exit because the user can enter the wrong string and construct my_foo.sql which I don't want. I don't think I have the condition for setting "or" correctly since putting the correct param still produces error. Is there a better way to write this?
Here is what I have so far.
#/usr/bin/ksh
if [ $# != 2 ]; then
echo "Usage: test.sh <dbname> <test|live>" 2>&1
exit 1
fi
# Check actual file name
CHKSCRIPT1=/tmp/my_test.sql;
CHKSCRIPT2=/tmp/my_live.sql;
if [ -f "CHKSCRIPT1" ] || [ -f "CHKSCRIPT2" ]
then
/bin/sqlplus -s foo/bar #/my_$2.sql
else
echo "Correct sql script does not exist. Enter test or live"
exit 1
fi
Your issue is that you're not referencing your variables correctly:
if [ -f "$CHKSCRIPT1" ] || [ -f "$CHKSCRIPT2" ]
...
fi
edit: Per #chepner, you shouldn't use -o
In addition to the problem you had with expanding the parameters, you should separate what the user types from what files need to exist. If the user enters "live", the only thing that matters is whether or not /tmp/my_live.sql exists. If the user enters "injection_attack", your script should not execute /tmp/my_injection_attack.sql (which presumably was created without your knowledge). The right thing to do is to first verify that a valid command was entered, then check if the appropriate file exists.
if [ $# != 2 ]; then
echo "Usage: test.sh <dbname> <test|live>" 2>&1
exit 1
fi
case $2 in
test|live)
filename="/tmp/my_{$2}.sql"
;;
*) echo "Must enter test or live"
exit 1
;;
esac
if [ -f "$filename" ]; then
/bin/sqlplus -s foo/bar #/my_$2.sql
else
echo "SQL script $filename does not exist."
exit 1
fi
How do I check if file exists in bash?
When I try to do it like this:
FILE1="${#:$OPTIND:1}"
if [ ! -e "$FILE1" ]
then
echo "requested file doesn't exist" >&2
exit 1
elif
<more code follows>
I always get following output:
requested file doesn't exist
The program is used like this:
script.sh [-g] [-p] [-r FUNCTION_ID|-d FUNCTION_ID] FILE
Any ideas please?
I will be glad for any help.
P.S. I wish I could show the entire file without the risk of being fired from school for having a duplicate. If there is a private method of communication I will happily oblige.
My mistake. Fas forcing a binary file into a wrong place. Thanks for everyone's help.
Little trick to debugging problems like this. Add these lines to the top of your script:
export PS4="\$LINENO: "
set -xv
The set -xv will print out each line before it is executed, and then the line once the shell interpolates variables, etc. The $PS4 is the prompt used by set -xv. This will print the line number of the shell script as it executes. You'll be able to follow what is going on and where you may have problems.
Here's an example of a test script:
#! /bin/bash
export PS4="\$LINENO: "
set -xv
FILE1="${#:$OPTIND:1}" # Line 6
if [ ! -e "$FILE1" ] # Line 7
then
echo "requested file doesn't exist" >&2
exit 1
else
echo "Found File $FILE1" # Line 12
fi
And here's what I get when I run it:
$ ./test.sh .profile
FILE1="${#:$OPTIND:1}"
6: FILE1=.profile
if [ ! -e "$FILE1" ]
then
echo "requested file doesn't exist" >&2
exit 1
else
echo "Found File $FILE1"
fi
7: [ ! -e .profile ]
12: echo 'Found File .profile'
Found File .profile
Here, I can see that I set $FILE1 to .profile, and that my script understood that ${#:$OPTIND:1}. The best thing about this is that it works on all shells down to the original Bourne shell. That means if you aren't running Bash as you think you might be, you'll see where your script is failing, and maybe fix the issue.
I suspect you might not be running your script in Bash. Did you put #! /bin/bash on the top?
script.sh [-g] [-p] [-r FUNCTION_ID|-d FUNCTION_ID] FILE
You may want to use getopts to parse your parameters:
#! /bin/bash
USAGE=" Usage:
script.sh [-g] [-p] [-r FUNCTION_ID|-d FUNCTION_ID] FILE
"
while getopts gpr:d: option
do
case $option in
g) g_opt=1;;
p) p_opt=1;;
r) rfunction_id="$OPTARG";;
d) dfunction_id="$OPTARG";;
[?])
echo "Invalid Usage" 1>&2
echo "$USAGE" 1>&2
exit 2
;;
esac
done
if [[ -n $rfunction_id && -n $dfunction_id ]]
then
echo "Invalid Usage: You can't specify both -r and -d" 1>&2
echo "$USAGE" >2&
exit 2
fi
shift $(($OPTIND - 1))
[[ -n $g_opt ]] && echo "-g was set"
[[ -n $p_opt ]] && echo "-p was set"
[[ -n $rfunction_id ]] && echo "-r was set to $rfunction_id"
[[ -n $dfunction_id ]] && echo "-d was set to $dfunction_id"
[[ -n $1 ]] && echo "File is $1"
To (recap) and add to #DavidW.'s excellent answer:
Check the shebang line (first line) of your script to ensure that it's executed by bash: is it #!/bin/bash or #!/usr/bin/env bash?
Inspect your script file for hidden control characters (such as \r) that can result in unexpected behavior; run cat -v scriptFile | fgrep ^ - it should produce NO output; if the file does contain \r chars., they would show as ^M.
To remove the \r instances (more accurately, to convert Windows-style \r\n newline sequences to Unix \n-only sequences), you can use dos2unix file to convert in place; if you don't have this utility, you can use sed 's/'$'\r''$//' file > outfile (CAVEAT: use a DIFFERENT output file, otherwise you'll destroy your input file); to remove all \r instances (even if not followed by \n), use tr -d '\r' < file > outfile (CAVEAT: use a DIFFERENT output file, otherwise you'll destroy your input file).
In addition to #DavidW.'s great debugging technique, you can add the following to visually inspect all arguments passed to your script:
i=0; for a; do echo "\$$((i+=1))=[$a]"; done
(The purpose of enclosing the value in [...] (for example), is to see the exact boundaries of the values.)
This will yield something like:
$1=[-g]
$2=[input.txt]
...
Note, though, that nothing at all is printed if no arguments were passed.
Try to print FILE1 to see if it has the value you want, if it is not the problem, here is a simple script (site below):
#!/bin/bash
file="${#:$OPTIND:1}"
if [ -f "$file" ]
then
echo "$file found."
else
echo "$file not found."
fi
http://www.cyberciti.biz/faq/unix-linux-test-existence-of-file-in-bash/
Instead of plucking an item out of "$#" in a tricky way, why don't you shift off the args you've processed with getopts:
while getopts ...
done
shift $(( OPTIND - 1 ))
FILE1=$1
I've gone around and around on the quoting stuff on http://tldp.org for bash and googled until I am blue in the face. I've also tried every obvious quoting scheme for this issue, and yet nothing works.
The problem seems to be that a space inside of a quoted argument in the command run at the end of the script is being interpreted as a separator instead of as a quoted space.
Behold, here's my script (I know full well I'm a noob so comments on my style and/or uneccessary syntax is cool with me, I'll learn):
#!/bin/bash
date=`date`
args="$#"
MSEND_HOME=/home/patrol/Impact #Path to the Impact Directory
integrationName=Introscope #Name of the integration
persistEnabled=1 #1 for Yes, 0 for No
persist=""
bufDir=$MSEND_HOME/tmp/$integrationName #DO NOT CHANGE
cellName=linuxtest #Cell name to forward events to
loggingEnabled=1 #1 for Yes, 0 for No
logFile=$MSEND_HOME/log/$integrationName.$cellName.log
die () {
if [ $loggingEnabled -eq 1 ]
then
echo >>$logFile "$#"
fi
exit 1
}
[ "$#" -ge 1 ] || die "$date - At least 1 argument required, $# provided" "$#"
# This is where you would parse out your arguments and form the following
# slots as a minimum for sending an event.
class=$2
msg=\"$3\"
# Parse the first argument and assign the correct syntax
if [[ $1 == "INFORMATIONAL" ]]
then
severity=INFO
elif [[ $1 == "WARN" ]]
then
severity=WARNING
elif [[ $1 == "CRIT" ]]
then
severity=CRITICAL
else
severity=INFO
fi
#Additional slots can be set, parse them all in this variable;
#e.g., additionalSlots="slot1=value1;slot2=value2;slot3=\"value 3\""
additionalSlots=""
cmd="$MSEND_HOME/bin/msend"
cmd="$cmd -q"
cmd="$cmd -l $MSEND_HOME"
if [ $persistEnabled -eq 1 ]
then
cmd="$cmd -j $bufDir"
fi
cmd="$cmd -n $cellName"
cmd="$cmd -a $class"
cmd="$cmd -m $msg"
cmd="$cmd -r $severity"
if [ $additionalSlots ]
then
cmd="$cmd -b $additionalSlots"
fi
$cmd || die "$date - msend exited with error $? | Original arguments: $args | Command: $cmd"
#echo "msend exited with error $? | Original arguments: $args | Command: $cmd"
The script is executed like this:
./sendEvent.sh "CRIT" "EVENT" "Test Event"
The error I get from the msend executable is that the arguments are wrong, but I'm logging the command line in it's entirety to a file and when I run that logged command in the shell interactively, it works.
Here's the log output:
Tue Oct 4 20:31:29 CDT 2011 - msend exited with error 27 | Original arguments: CRIT EVENT Test Event | Command: /home/patrol/Impact/bin/msend -q -l /home/patrol/Impact -j /home/patrol/Impact/tmp/Introscope -n linuxtest -a EVENT -m "Test Event" -r CRITICAL
So if I paste /home/patrol/Impact/bin/msend -q -l /home/patrol/Impact -j /home/patrol/Impact/tmp/Introscope -n linuxtest -a EVENT -m "Test Event" -r CRITICAL and run it, it works.
If I run the script like ./sendEvent.sh "CRIT" "EVENT" "TestEvent" it works. But I need that argument to allow spaces.
I'm on the track that it's an $IFS issue or something... maybe a difference between the interactive shell and the script environment.
I'd appreciate any insight from smarter people than me!
tl;dr - My command doesn't work when run from within a script, but does when the logged command syntax is used in an interactive shell.
Short answer: see BashFAQ #50.
Long answer: When bash parses a line, it parses quote marks before doing variable substitution; as a result, when you put quotes inside a variable, they don't do what you'd expect. You're actually passing an argument list including '-m' '"Test' 'Event"' '-r' -- those double-quotes aren't around the arguments, they're in the arguments.
In this case, the best solution is to build the command in an array rather than a string. Also, get in the habbit of putting double-quotes around variables (e.g. filenames) when you use them, to prevent confusion if they contain spaces. With those changes (and a few other tweaks), here's my version of your script:
#!/bin/bash
date="$(date)" # Backquotes are confusing, use $() instead
args=("$#") # Save the args in an array rather than mushing them together in a string
MSEND_HOME=/home/patrol/Impact #Path to the Impact Directory
MSEND_HOME="$HOME/tmp" #Path to the Impact Directory
integrationName=Introscope #Name of the integration
persistEnabled=1 #1 for Yes, 0 for No
persist=""
bufDir="$MSEND_HOME/tmp/$integrationName" #DO NOT CHANGE
cellName=linuxtest #Cell name to forward events to
loggingEnabled=1 #1 for Yes, 0 for No
logFile="$MSEND_HOME/log/$integrationName.$cellName.log"
die () {
if [ $loggingEnabled -eq 1 ]
then
echo >>"$logFile" "$#"
fi
exit 1
}
[ "$#" -ge 1 ] || die "$date - At least 1 argument required, $# provided" "$#"
# This is where you would parse out your arguments and form the following
# slots as a minimum for sending an event.
class="$2" # Quotes not strictly needed here, but a good habbit
msg="$3"
# Parse the first argument and assign the correct syntax
if [[ "$1" == "INFORMATIONAL" ]]
then
severity=INFO
elif [[ "$1" == "WARN" ]]
then
severity=WARNING
elif [[ "$1" == "CRIT" ]]
then
severity=CRITICAL
else
severity=INFO
fi
#Additional slots can be set, parse them all in this array;
#e.g., additionalSlots="slot1=value1;slot2=value2;slot3=value 3" # Don't embed quotes
additionalSlots=""
cmd=("$MSEND_HOME/bin/msend") # Build the command as an array, not a string
cmd+=(-q) # Could equivalently use cmd=("${cmd[#]}" -q), but this is simpler
cmd+=(-l "$MSEND_HOME")
if [ $persistEnabled -eq 1 ]
then
cmd+=(-j "$bufDir")
fi
cmd+=(-n "$cellName")
cmd+=(-a "$class") # Possible bug: $2 and #3 aren't required, but they're getting added unconditionally
cmd+=(-m "$msg") # These should probably be conditional, like additionalSlots
cmd+=(-r "$severity")
if [ -n "$additionalSlots" ]
then
cmd+=(-b "$additionalSlots")
fi
"${cmd[#]}" || die "$date - msend exited with error $? | Original arguments:$(printf " %q" "${args[#]}") | Command:$(printf " %q" "${cmd[#]}")"
#echo "msend exited with error $? | Original arguments:$(printf " %q" "${args[#]}") | Command:$(printf " %q" "${cmd[#]}")"
I think the arg goes wrong with this assignment: cmd="$cmd -m $msg".
Change it to cmd="$cmd -m \"$msg\"".
Okay, I don't see the exact problem immediately, but I can tell you what it is; this hint should help.
Remember that the shell quoting mechanism only interprets a string once. As a result, if you're not careful, what you thought was "foo" "a" "b" is in fact "foo a b" -- that is, all one token, not three.
Run the script with bash -x which will show you at each step what the shell is actually seeing.