How to pass value to read variable with pipe (stdin) in bash - bash

I read a lot about passing piping stdin to bash read function, but nothing seems to work for my bash version!!
GNU bash, version 3.2.51(1)-release (x86_64-suse-linux-gnu)
I have a bash script that in some point asks the user "yes/no" with variable CONTINUEQUESTION:
echo "Do you want to continue? (yes/no):"
read CONTINUEQUESTION
tmp=$(tr '[:upper:]' '[:lower:]' <<<$CONTINUEQUESTION)
if [[ "$tmp" != 'y' && "$tmp" != 'yes' ]]; then
echo "Aborting because of input '$CONTINUEQUESTION'"
exit
fi
I would like to pipe a "yes or no" to this question without user input!
Yes i know i could use expect, but i don't prefer it in this case.
So i tried several things:
CONTINUEQUESTION='yes'
echo $CONTINUEQUESTION | ./myscript.sh
Aborting because of input ''
./myscript.sh <<< "$CONTINUEQUESTION"
Aborting because of input ''
...and many other, nothing worked!?
O.k. now I did a bit revers thinking and find out that the below line causes the problem with the pipe...because when i remarked it out all the below answers are working just fine, but not when this line is executed:
running=`ssh root#${HOSTNAME} 'su - root -c "/bin/tools list | grep \"system running\"" 2>&1'`
But, i need this line before the read! What do i need to reverse the 2>&1????
My script look like this and is working without this try to over come the user intervantion:
LIST_FILE_NAME=$1
STILL_RUNNING=0
running=`ssh root#${HOSTNAME} 'su - root -c "cat '$LIST_FILE_NAME' | grep \"system running\"" 2>&1'`
if [[ $running =~ .*running.* ]]; then
STILL_RUNNING=1
echo "NODE $NODE running stop before continuing."
fi
if [ $STILL_RUNNING -eq 1 ]; then
echo "Aborting system was still running!"
exit 1
fi
echo "Do you want to continue? (yes/no):"
read CONTINUEQUESTION
tmp=$(tr '[:upper:]' '[:lower:]' <<<$CONTINUEQUESTION)
if [[ "$tmp" != 'y' && "$tmp" != 'yes' ]]; then
echo "Aborting because of input '$CONTINUEQUESTION'"
exit
fi
echo "o.k."
4 points:
list.log can have a line with "system running" or "system notrunning"
if list.log has a line with "system notrunning" than the bash script continue towards the question
at the question i never got it right to inject the 'y' or 'yes' so the bash aborts because of input ''
i execute this like: ./myscript.sh list list.log (normal way)
This bash runs well if the user interacts at the question!
Thanks for you time!!!

Consider this variation as well:
#!/bin/bash
read -p "Do you want to continue? (yes/no): " CONTINUEQUESTION
if [[ $CONTINUEQUESTION != [Yy] && $CONTINUEQUESTION != [Yy][Ee][Ss] ]]; then
echo "Aborting because of input '$CONTINUEQUESTION'."
exit
fi
Tested with:
bash script.sh <<< yes
If it doesn't work, show the output of:
bash -x script.sh <<< yes

Your line
$CONTINUEQUESTION='yes'
shoul really be
CONTINUEQUESTION='yes'
I am not sure then that your are feeding stdin with the word 'yes'. You could add an echo after the read to be sure.

You can use heredoc:
bash -ex ./myscript.sh << 'EOF'
yes
EOF
Search for Here Documents in man bash.
EDIT: Based on comments you can use this ssh command:
running=$(ssh -t -t root#${HOSTNAME} "grep 'system running' \"$LIST_FILE_NAME\"")

Related

Variable scope in Bash [duplicate]

Please explain to me why the very last echo statement is blank? I expect that XCODE is incremented in the while loop to a value of 1:
#!/bin/bash
OUTPUT="name1 ip ip status" # normally output of another command with multi line output
if [ -z "$OUTPUT" ]
then
echo "Status WARN: No messages from SMcli"
exit $STATE_WARNING
else
echo "$OUTPUT"|while read NAME IP1 IP2 STATUS
do
if [ "$STATUS" != "Optimal" ]
then
echo "CRIT: $NAME - $STATUS"
echo $((++XCODE))
else
echo "OK: $NAME - $STATUS"
fi
done
fi
echo $XCODE
I've tried using the following statement instead of the ++XCODE method
XCODE=`expr $XCODE + 1`
and it too won't print outside of the while statement. I think I'm missing something about variable scope here, but the ol' man page isn't showing it to me.
Because you're piping into the while loop, a sub-shell is created to run the while loop.
Now this child process has its own copy of the environment and can't pass any
variables back to its parent (as in any unix process).
Therefore you'll need to restructure so that you're not piping into the loop.
Alternatively you could run in a function, for example, and echo the value you
want returned from the sub-process.
http://tldp.org/LDP/abs/html/subshells.html#SUBSHELL
The problem is that processes put together with a pipe are executed in subshells (and therefore have their own environment). Whatever happens within the while does not affect anything outside of the pipe.
Your specific example can be solved by rewriting the pipe to
while ... do ... done <<< "$OUTPUT"
or perhaps
while ... do ... done < <(echo "$OUTPUT")
This should work as well (because echo and while are in same subshell):
#!/bin/bash
cat /tmp/randomFile | (while read line
do
LINE="$LINE $line"
done && echo $LINE )
One more option:
#!/bin/bash
cat /some/file | while read line
do
var="abc"
echo $var | xsel -i -p # redirect stdin to the X primary selection
done
var=$(xsel -o -p) # redirect back to stdout
echo $var
EDIT:
Here, xsel is a requirement (install it).
Alternatively, you can use xclip:
xclip -i -selection clipboard
instead of
xsel -i -p
I got around this when I was making my own little du:
ls -l | sed '/total/d ; s/ */\t/g' | cut -f 5 |
( SUM=0; while read SIZE; do SUM=$(($SUM+$SIZE)); done; echo "$(($SUM/1024/1024/1024))GB" )
The point is that I make a subshell with ( ) containing my SUM variable and the while, but I pipe into the whole ( ) instead of into the while itself, which avoids the gotcha.
#!/bin/bash
OUTPUT="name1 ip ip status"
+export XCODE=0;
if [ -z "$OUTPUT" ]
----
echo "CRIT: $NAME - $STATUS"
- echo $((++XCODE))
+ export XCODE=$(( $XCODE + 1 ))
else
echo $XCODE
see if those changes help
Another option is to output the results into a file from the subshell and then read it in the parent shell. something like
#!/bin/bash
EXPORTFILE=/tmp/exportfile${RANDOM}
cat /tmp/randomFile | while read line
do
LINE="$LINE $line"
echo $LINE > $EXPORTFILE
done
LINE=$(cat $EXPORTFILE)

Check if file exists [BASH]

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

How to make "if not true condition"?

I would like to have the echo command executed when cat /etc/passwd | grep "sysa" is not true.
What am I doing wrong?
if ! [ $(cat /etc/passwd | grep "sysa") ]; then
echo "ERROR - The user sysa could not be looked up"
exit 2
fi
try
if ! grep -q sysa /etc/passwd ; then
grep returns true if it finds the search target, and false if it doesn't.
So NOT false (! false) == true.
if evaluation in shells are designed to be very flexible, and many times doesn't require chains of commands (as you have written).
Also, looking at your code as is, your use of the $( ... ) form of cmd-substitution is to be commended, but think about what is coming out of the process. Try echo $(cat /etc/passwd | grep "sysa") to see what I mean. You can take that further by using the -c (count) option to grep and then do if ! [ $(grep -c "sysa" /etc/passwd) -eq 0 ] ; then which works but is rather old school.
BUT, you could use the newest shell features (arithmetic evaluation) like
if ! (( $(grep -c "sysa" /etc/passwd) == 0 )) ; then ...`
which also gives you the benefit of using the c-lang based comparison operators, ==,<,>,>=,<=,% and maybe a few others.
In this case, per a comment by Orwellophile, the arithmetic evaluation can be pared down even further, like
if ! (( $(grep -c "sysa" /etc/passwd) )) ; then ....
OR
if (( ! $(grep -c "sysa" /etc/passwd) )) ; then ....
Finally, there is an award called the Useless Use of Cat (UUOC). :-) Some people will jump up and down and cry gothca! I'll just say that grep can take a file name on its cmd-line, so why invoke extra processes and pipe constructions when you don't have to? ;-)
I hope this helps.
I think it can be simplified into:
grep sysa /etc/passwd || {
echo "ERROR - The user sysa could not be looked up"
exit 2
}
or in a single command line
$ grep sysa /etc/passwd || { echo "ERROR - The user sysa could not be looked up"; exit 2; }
This one
if [[ ! $(cat /etc/passwd | grep "sysa") ]]; then
echo " something"
exit 2
fi
What am I doing wrong?
$(...) holds the value, not the exit status, that is why this approach is wrong. However, in this specific case, it does indeed work because sysa will be printed which makes the test statement come true. However, if ! [ $(true) ]; then echo false; fi would always print false because the true command does not write anything to stdout (even though the exit code is 0). That is why it needs to be rephrased to if ! grep ...; then.
An alternative would be cat /etc/passwd | grep "sysa" || echo error. Edit: As Alex pointed out, cat is useless here: grep "sysa" /etc/passwd || echo error.
Found the other answers rather confusing, hope this helps someone.
Here is an answer by way of example:
In order to make sure data loggers are online a cron script runs every 15 minutes that looks like this:
#!/bin/bash
#
if ! ping -c 1 SOLAR &>/dev/null
then
echo "SUBJECT: SOLAR is not responding to ping" | ssmtp abc#def.com
echo "SOLAR is not responding to ping" | ssmtp 4151112222#txt.att.com
else
echo "SOLAR is up"
fi
#
if ! ping -c 1 OUTSIDE &>/dev/null
then
echo "SUBJECT: OUTSIDE is not responding to ping" | ssmtp abc#def.com
echo "OUTSIDE is not responding to ping" | ssmtp 4151112222#txt.att.com
else
echo "OUTSIDE is up"
fi
#
...and so on for each data logger that you can see in the montage
at http://www.SDsolarBlog.com/montage
FYI, using &>/dev/null redirects all output from the command, including errors, to /dev/null
(The conditional only requires the exit status of the ping command)
Also FYI, note that since cron jobs run as root there is no need to use sudo ping in a cron script.
simply:
if ! examplecommand arg1 arg2 ...; then
#code block
fi
without any brackets.
On Unix systems that supports it (not macOS it seems):
if getent passwd "$username" >/dev/null; then
printf 'User %s exists\n' "$username"
else
printf 'User %s does not exist\n' "$username"
fi
This has the advantage that it will query any directory service that may be in use (YP/NIS or LDAP etc.) and the local password database file.
The issue with grep -q "$username" /etc/passwd is that it will give a false positive when there is no such user, but something else matches the pattern. This could happen if there is a partial or exact match somewhere else in the file.
For example, in my passwd file, there is a line saying
build:*:21:21:base and xenocara build:/var/empty:/bin/ksh
This would provoke a valid match on things like cara and enoc etc., even though there are no such users on my system.
For a grep solution to be correct, you will need to properly parse the /etc/passwd file:
if cut -d ':' -f 1 /etc/passwd | grep -qxF "$username"; then
# found
else
# not found
fi
... or any other similar test against the first of the :-delimited fields.
I'd expect to see in the answers the direct use of grep with -q option (as we don't care the result but need only the return code.)
if ! grep -qs "sysa" /etc/passwd; then
echo "ERROR - The user sysa could not be looked up" >&2
exit 2
fi
or (to use chained execution on fail)
grep -qs "sysa" /etc/passwd || {
echo "ERROR - The user sysa could not be looked up" >&2
exit 2
}
Better, because the opposite is wanted, there's option -v for that
if grep -qsv "sysa" /etc/passwd; then
echo "ERROR - The user sysa could not be looked up" >&2
exit 2
fi
or (to use chained execution on success)
grep -qsv "sysa" /etc/passwd && {
echo "ERROR - The user sysa could not be looked up" >&2
exit 2
}
Notes
I like redirecting error messages to stderr, but echo output to stdout, hence >&2
Taylor the search pattern, e.g something like '^sysa:' if it's full login.

Bash programming with filesystem functions

I have been busy this week trying to wrap my head around a little Bash program to migrate a CMS from one server to another. The reasopn for this is because I have more tha 40 of these to do, and need to get it done in a timely manner, thus the Bash idea.
Needless to say, I have run into a couple of problems so far, but one of them has halted my development completetly, directory checking.
No I have tried a couple of methods and none of them seem to work really. The catch is that I have to check the folder on a remote server via ssh. Here my example:
ExSshRsa=~/.ssh/id_rsa
ExSshPort=22
ExSshHost=localhost
ExRoot=/var/www/
echo -n "Verifying Root access $ExRoot..."
SSHRoot='ssh -i $ExSshRsa -p $ExSshPort $ExSshHost [ -d $ExRoot ] || exit 1 '
echo $SSHRoot
if [ "$SSHRoot" -eq 0 ]
then
echo "OK"
else
echo "FAIL"
fi
I get the Error: [: : integer expression expected
Does the [ or test not resturn a 0 which is numerical. ?
Passing strings as arguments to a remote host is not trivial; you need to use arrays. A test example:
declare -a cmd=(touch "file name with spaces")
printf -v escaped_cmd_str '%q ' "${cmd[#]}"
ssh localhost $escaped_cmd
ssh localhost ls # Should return "file name with spaces" on a separate line
So your case should be:
ExSshRsa=~/.ssh/id_rsa
ExSshPort=22
ExSshHost=localhost
ExRoot=/var/www/
echo -n "Verifying Root access $ExRoot..."
declare -a cmd=( '[' -d "$ExRoot" ']' ) # Need to quote "[" since it's a Bash-specific symbol
printf -v escaped_cmd_str '%q ' "${cmd[#]}"
if ssh -i "$ExSshRsa" -p "$ExSshPort" "$ExSshHost" $escaped_cmd
then
echo "OK"
else
echo "FAIL"
fi
This is a rare case where using unquoted variable expansion is perfectly fine.
change the shebang to #!/bin/bash -x and look at the output...
you are storing a string in variable SSHRoot using single quotes, meaning that no variables will be expanded, i.e. a $ is still a $. Use double quotes instead, i.e. "
to store the output from a command in bash, use
var=$(cmd)
the exist status of a command is stored in the variable $?. Do a check on that after the ssh-command
you are never executing the ssh-command in your code
Great link here for bash-programming
Try the following:
ExSshRsa=~/.ssh/id_rsa
ExSshPort=22
ExSshHost=localhost
ExRoot=/var/www/
echo -n "Verifying Root access $ExRoot..."
cmd="bash -c \"[ -d $ExRoot ] || exit 1\""
SSHRoot="ssh -i $ExSshRsa -p $ExSshPort $ExSshHost ${cmd}"
$SSHRoot
if [ $? -eq 0 ]
then
echo "OK"
else
echo "FAIL"
fi
The variables weren't being replaced in your SSHRoot variable as it's in single quotes. Also, you weren't passing an executable command, so that's why I use bash -c above. It will run the bash commands inside the quoted string.
$? stores the exit value of the last command, in this case the SSHRoot one.
#!/bin/bash
ExSshRsa=~/.ssh/id_rsa
ExSshPort=22
ExSshHost=localhost
ExBase='/tmp/'
ExRoot='one space/'
declare -a AExRoot
for argR in "${ExRoot[#]}"
do
ExRoot+=($(printf %q "$argR"))
done
clear
FRoot=( $ExBase${ExRoot[#]} )
echo -n "Verifying Root access $FRoot..."
SSHRootTest="bash -c \"[ -d $FRoot ] && echo 0 && exit 0 || echo 1 && exit 1\""
SSHRoot=$( ssh -i $ExSshRsa -p $ExSshPort $ExSshHost ${SSHRootTest})
if [ $? -eq 0 ]
then
echo -en "\e[1;32mOK\e[0;37;m..."
else
echo -en "\e[1;31mFAIL\e[0;37;m..."
fi
sleep 1
if [ -w $FRoot ]
then
echo -e "\e[1;32mwritable\e[0;37;m"
else
echo -e "\e[1;31mNOT writeable\e[0;37;m"
fi
echo -e "\e[0;m"
exit 0
So I have incorporated all of the suggestions so far and have one last problem, the FRoot is not getting populated by the complete array values. Other than that I think it now has the subjective approach as suggested #john-keyes, the proper expansion #frederik and the crazy space escapes #l0b0

Bash variable scope

Please explain to me why the very last echo statement is blank? I expect that XCODE is incremented in the while loop to a value of 1:
#!/bin/bash
OUTPUT="name1 ip ip status" # normally output of another command with multi line output
if [ -z "$OUTPUT" ]
then
echo "Status WARN: No messages from SMcli"
exit $STATE_WARNING
else
echo "$OUTPUT"|while read NAME IP1 IP2 STATUS
do
if [ "$STATUS" != "Optimal" ]
then
echo "CRIT: $NAME - $STATUS"
echo $((++XCODE))
else
echo "OK: $NAME - $STATUS"
fi
done
fi
echo $XCODE
I've tried using the following statement instead of the ++XCODE method
XCODE=`expr $XCODE + 1`
and it too won't print outside of the while statement. I think I'm missing something about variable scope here, but the ol' man page isn't showing it to me.
Because you're piping into the while loop, a sub-shell is created to run the while loop.
Now this child process has its own copy of the environment and can't pass any
variables back to its parent (as in any unix process).
Therefore you'll need to restructure so that you're not piping into the loop.
Alternatively you could run in a function, for example, and echo the value you
want returned from the sub-process.
http://tldp.org/LDP/abs/html/subshells.html#SUBSHELL
The problem is that processes put together with a pipe are executed in subshells (and therefore have their own environment). Whatever happens within the while does not affect anything outside of the pipe.
Your specific example can be solved by rewriting the pipe to
while ... do ... done <<< "$OUTPUT"
or perhaps
while ... do ... done < <(echo "$OUTPUT")
This should work as well (because echo and while are in same subshell):
#!/bin/bash
cat /tmp/randomFile | (while read line
do
LINE="$LINE $line"
done && echo $LINE )
One more option:
#!/bin/bash
cat /some/file | while read line
do
var="abc"
echo $var | xsel -i -p # redirect stdin to the X primary selection
done
var=$(xsel -o -p) # redirect back to stdout
echo $var
EDIT:
Here, xsel is a requirement (install it).
Alternatively, you can use xclip:
xclip -i -selection clipboard
instead of
xsel -i -p
I got around this when I was making my own little du:
ls -l | sed '/total/d ; s/ */\t/g' | cut -f 5 |
( SUM=0; while read SIZE; do SUM=$(($SUM+$SIZE)); done; echo "$(($SUM/1024/1024/1024))GB" )
The point is that I make a subshell with ( ) containing my SUM variable and the while, but I pipe into the whole ( ) instead of into the while itself, which avoids the gotcha.
#!/bin/bash
OUTPUT="name1 ip ip status"
+export XCODE=0;
if [ -z "$OUTPUT" ]
----
echo "CRIT: $NAME - $STATUS"
- echo $((++XCODE))
+ export XCODE=$(( $XCODE + 1 ))
else
echo $XCODE
see if those changes help
Another option is to output the results into a file from the subshell and then read it in the parent shell. something like
#!/bin/bash
EXPORTFILE=/tmp/exportfile${RANDOM}
cat /tmp/randomFile | while read line
do
LINE="$LINE $line"
echo $LINE > $EXPORTFILE
done
LINE=$(cat $EXPORTFILE)

Resources