I have a couple scripts to clean up some generated HTML; a python script using BeautifulSoup, and a Ruby script. These remove unneeded tags and attributes, transform symbols to html encodings, get rid of excessive newline characters, and make sure the files are encoded in valid UTF-8.
I can run these two scripts from the command line and they work as expected; and I can run them in this shell script from the command line:
#!/bin/bash
HTMLPath=$1
echo $HTMLPath 2>&1 >> /Users/me/Desktop/log.txt
/usr/bin/python /Users/me/DevProj/script/cleanHTML.py "$HTMLPath" 2>&1 >> /Users/me/DevProj/logs/log.txt
/Users/me/.rvm/rubies/ruby-1.9.3-p374/bin/ruby /Users/me/DevProj/script/cleanupHtml.rb "$HTMLPath" 2>&1 >> /Users/me/DevProj/logs/log.txt
and this also gives the expected result.
However when I run them from Automator, which feeds them a list of html files to process, the python script removes the html encoding − from the file (HTML encoding for minus symbol -) and I end up with white space instead. The problem is, I need those minus signs to remain, preferably as − and I need it to be run from Automator.
I thought it might have something to do with the version of python that the Automator shell was using, so I created the shell script to ensure it would use same bash shell I use on the command line, /bin/bash.
Has anyone else out there run into this issue? Am I doing something wrong from Automator?
In the script I have added python --version >> log.txt but it won't output the python version to the log... I have a sneaking suspicion that Automator is using its own older python library.
Note: I have only encountered this problem when there are − strings in the input file. It otherwise runs fine from Automator. Automator is causing the problem.
Related
In cmd, it is possible to use Linux commands with the ubuntu or bash commands, but they are very fickle. In batch, it is also possible to make a VBScript-batch hybrid, which got me thinking, is it possible to make a Bash-batch hybrid? Besides being a tongue-twister, I feel that Bash-batch scripts may be really useful.
What I have tried so far
So far I tried using the empty bash and ubuntu commands alone since they switch the normal command-prompt to the Ubuntu/Bash shell, but even if you put commands after the ubuntu/bash they wouldn't show or do anything.
After I tried that, I tried using the ubuntu -run command, but like I said earlier, it’s really fickle and inconsistent on what things work and what things don't. It is less inconsistent when you pipe things into it, but it still usually doesn't work.
I looked here since it seemed like it would answer my question and I tried it, but it didn't work since it required another program (I think).
I also looked to this and I guess it failed miserably, but interesting concept.
What I've gotten from all of my research is that most people think when this is mentioned of a file that could be run either as a .bat file or as .sh shell file instead of my goal, to make a file that runs both batch and Bash commands in the same instance.
What I want this for relates to my other question where I am trying to hash a string instead of a file in cmd, and you could do it with a Bash command, but I would still like to keep the file as a batch file.
Sure you can use Bash in batch, assuming it is available. Just use the command bash -c 'cmd', where cmd is the command that you want to run in Bash.
The following batch line pipes the Hello to cat -A command that prints it including the invisible symbols:
echo Hello | bash -c "cat -A"
Compare the output with the result of the version completely written in Bash:
bash -c "echo Hello | cat -A"
They will slightly differ!
I would like to run a Bash shell script (.sh) using the Windows Subsystem for Linux as part of a Build Event in Visual Studio, in a C++ project.
But there are lots of errors when I do this, and I can't seem to find the right combination of quotation marks and apostrophes and backslashes to either make Bash run in the first place, or to properly pass the path to the script.
How do I make Visual Studio run my Bash shell script as a build event?
(Feel free to skip to the bottom of this answer if you don't care about how to solve the problem and just want a command you can copy and paste!)
Overview
I run a number of Bash shell scripts as part of Build events in Visual Studio, and I used to use Cygwin to run them. Now that the Windows Subsystem for Linux is available, I spent some time switching my builds over to use WSL, and it wasn't as easy as I'd hoped, but it can work, with a little time and energy.
There are several issues you'll run into if you're going to do this:
The path to bash.exe may not be what you think it is, because under the hood, Visual Studio uses a 32-bit build process, so if you're on a 64-bit machine, you can't simply run the 64-bit bash.exe without getting the dreaded 'C:\Windows\System32\bash.exe' is not recognized error.
The path to your solution or project is a Windows path that uses backslashes (\), and those don't play nice in Unix, which prefers forward slashes (/) as a path delimiter.
The root drive of the solution, typically something like C:\, is meaningless gibberish in Unix; to reach the root drive in WSL, you'll need to use a mounted drive under /mnt.
The casing of the drive letter is different between Windows and WSL: In Windows, it's uppercase C:\, and in WSL, it's lowercase /mnt/c.
And to make it a little harder, we don't want to hard-code any of the paths: It should all Just Work, no matter where the solution is found.
The good news is that they're all solvable issues! Let's tackle them one at a time.
Fixing the Issues
1. The proper path to Bash
Per the answer given here, you'll need to use a magic path to reach Bash when running it from a Visual Studio build. The correct path is not C:\Windows\System32\bash.exe, but is actually
%windir%\sysnative\bash.exe
The magic sysnative folder avoids the invisible filesystem redirection performed by the WOW64 layer, and points to the native bash.exe file.
2. Fixing the backslashes
The next problem you're likely to run into is the backslashes. Ideally, you'd like to run a project script like $(ProjectDir)myscript.sh, but that expands to something like C:\Code\MySolution\MyProject\myscript.sh. At a minimum, you'd like that to be at least C:/Code/MySolution/MyProject/myscript.sh, which isn't exactly right, but which is a lot closer to correct.
So sed to the rescue! sed is a Unix tool that mutates text in files: It searches for text using regular expressions, and, among other things, can replace that text with a modified version. Here, we're going to pipe the path we have into sed, and then use some regex magic to swap the path separators, like this (with lines wrapped here for readability):
%windir%\sysnative\bash.exe -c "echo '$(ProjectDir)myscript.sh'
| sed -e 's/\\\\/\//g;'"
If you include this as your build event, you'll see that it now doesn't run the script, but it at least prints something like C:/Code/MySolution/MyProject/myscript.sh to the output console, which is a step in the right direction.
And yes, that's a lot of backslashes and quotes and apostrophes to get the escaping right, because Nmake.exe and bash and sed are all going to consume some of those special symbols while processing their respective command-lines.
3. Fixing the C:\ root path
We want to mutate the sed script so that it turns the C:\ into /mnt/C. A little more regex substitution magic can do that. (And we have to turn on the -r flag in sed so that we can easily use capture groups.)
%windir%\sysnative\bash.exe -c "echo '$(ProjectDir)myscript.sh'
| sed -re 's/\\\\/\//g; s/([A-Z]):/\/mnt\/\1/i;'"
If you run this, you'll now see the output path as something like /mnt/C/Code/MySolution/MyProject/myscript.sh, which is almost but not quite correct.
4. Fixing the case-change in the root path
WSL mounts your disks in lowercase, and Windows mounts them in uppercase. Consistency! How do we fix this? Yet more sed magic!
The \L command can be used to tell sed to transform succeeding characters to lowercase (and there's an equivalent \U for uppercase). The \E command will switch output back to "normal" mode, where characters are left untouched.
Adding these in finally results in the correct path being output:
%windir%\sysnative\bash.exe -c "echo '$(ProjectDir)myscript.sh'
| sed -re 's/\\\\/\//g; s/([A-Z]):/\/mnt\/\L\1\E/i;'"
5. Running it
This whole time, Bash has just been printing out the path to the script. How do we run it instead, now that it's the correct path?
The answer is to add `backticks`! Backticks cause Bash to execute the command contained within them, and to then use that command's output as the arguments to the next command. In this case, we're not going to output anything: We just want to run the output of sed as a command.
So including the backticks, here's the result:
%windir%\sysnative\bash.exe -c "`echo '$(ProjectDir)myscript.sh'
| sed -re 's/\\\\/\//g; s/([A-Z]):/\/mnt\/\L\1\E/i;'`"
The Complete Solution
Here's what the whole solution looks like, for running a script named myscript.sh as a Build Event, in the current Project directory of the current Solution:
%windir%\sysnative\bash.exe -c "`echo '$(ProjectDir)myscript.sh' | sed -re 's/\\\\/\//g; s/([A-Z]):/\/mnt\/\L\1\E/i;'`"
Here's a screen-shot showing the same thing in Visual Studio 2017, for a real C++ project:
It's not easy, but it's not impossible.
If you have Git for Windows installed, try this. I found it simpler than installing WSL. The basic idea is to create an intermediate batch script to call your bash script, using Git bash's in-built bash or sh command from the batch script.
With Git for Windows, you'll have a Git\bin folder e.g. at:
C:\Program Files\Git\bin
Inside that directory you should see the bash.exe and sh.exe programs. So if you add that directory to your Windows Path environment variable then you'll be able to use sh and bash from the Windows command line. These commands will allow you to run your bash scripts "inline" within a CMD console window. That is, they won't spawn a new bash window; meaning the console output will be visible in your VS build.
From there, just create a .bat file which calls your .sh file using either the sh command or the bash command. Not sure the difference; we just use the sh command. So if your bash script is pre.sh, then your batch file would be just a single line calling the bash script:
sh %~dp0\pre.sh
if errorlevel 1 (
exit /b %errorlevel%
)
The %~dp0 assumes the batch and bash scripts are in the same directory. You then point your VS build event to the .bat file. The check for error level is necessary so that any failures from the bash script are forwarded up to the batch script. See: How do I get the application exit code from a Windows command line?.
To hook this in as a build event in VS2019 then, just follow the standard instructions for hooking in a .bat file: https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/visualstudio/ide/specifying-custom-build-events-in-visual-studio?view=vs-2019.
Update: Beware Visual Studio's (VS's) Path Variable Behaviour
One thing we found quite frustrating with this solution was the tendency of VS to not load in the path variable correctly. It seems to prefer the user variable over the system variable. But even after we deleted the user variable, sometimes the path didn't seem to be getting picked up by VS, and we kept getting "sh is not recognised..." messages on our build console. Whenever that happened, restarting VS seemed to do the trick. Not very satisfying, but it gets us by.
Update: This is not a Full Unix Solution
Git for Windows does have a lot of Unix commands available, but not all of them. So in general, this won't work. For the general case, WSL is more robust. However, if it's just pretty lightweight Unix you need, this will suffice, and will likely be an easier approach for Windows users who would rather avoid the steeper setup cost of installing the full WSL.
Original idea to use Git bash came from here: https://superuser.com/questions/1218943/windows-command-prompt-capture-output-of-bash-script-in-one-step
Instead of backticks, you can wrap command with $( and )
I am currently trying to create a script that executes a program 100 times, with different parameters, typically pretty simple, but it's adding strange characters into the output filename that is passed into the command call for the program, the script i have written goes as follows
#!/bin/bash
for i in {1..100}
do ./generaterandomizedlist 10 input/input_10_$i.txt
done
I've taken a small screenshot of the output file name here
https://imgur.com/I855Hof
(extra characters are not recognized by chrome so simply pasting the name doesn't work)
It doesn't do this when i manually call the command issued in the script, any ideas?
Your script has some stray CRs in it. Use dos2unix or tr to fix it.
I'm trying to write a quick batch file. It will take the result of a command, put some extra text and quotes around it, and put that into a new file.The problem is that the result of the command I'm running includes a new line. Here's the command:
p4 changelists -m 1 -t //depot/...> %FILENAME%
The output of that p4 command has a newline at the end of it. The file I'm putting it into needs to have quotes surrounding the output of that command, but the fact that the command contains a newline in it means that the "closing quote" appears on a new line in the file, which doesn't work for what I'm doing.
I've tried writing the output of that command into a file and reading it back in, and also trying to run FINDSTR on a file containing the output, but I always seem to get back the stupid trailing whitespace. I've even tried inserting backspaces into the file, but that just put a backspace character into the file instead of actually executing a backspace...
Is there anything to be done about this?
I'm no perl wizard, but the following seems to work:
p4 changelists -m 1 -t //depot/...| perl -p -e "s/^/\042/;s/$/\042/"
Check out Strawberry Perl, which provides a Windows version of Perl.
I'm always looking at my Unix tools when solving problems like this, even under Windows. sed and gawk will also get you there, check out msysgit for a nice bundle of Unix tools that will run on Windows.
This question already has answers here:
How to trick an application into thinking its stdout is a terminal, not a pipe
(9 answers)
Closed 5 years ago.
Various bash commands I use -- fancy diffs, build scripts, etc, produce lots of color output.
When I redirect this output to a file, and then cat or less the file later, the colorization is gone -- presumably b/c the act of redirecting the output stripped out the color codes that tell the terminal to change colors.
Is there a way to capture colorized output, including the colorization?
One way to capture colorized output is with the script command. Running script will start a bash session where all of the raw output is captured to a file (named typescript by default).
Redirecting doesn't strip colors, but many commands will detect when they are sending output to a terminal, and will not produce colors by default if not. For example, on Linux ls --color=auto (which is aliased to plain ls in a lot of places) will not produce color codes if outputting to a pipe or file, but ls --color will. Many other tools have similar override flags to get them to save colorized output to a file, but it's all specific to the individual tool.
Even once you have the color codes in a file, to see them you need to use a tool that leaves them intact. less has a -r flag to show file data in "raw" mode; this displays color codes. edit: Slightly newer versions also have a -R flag which is specifically aware of color codes and displays them properly, with better support for things like line wrapping/trimming than raw mode because less can tell which things are control codes and which are actually characters going to the screen.
Inspired by the other answers, I started using script. I had to use -c to get it working though. All other answers, including tee, different script examples did not work for me.
Context:
Ubuntu 16.04
running behavior tests with behave and starting shell command during the test with python's subprocess.check_call()
Solution:
script --flush --quiet --return /tmp/ansible-output.txt --command "my-ansible-command"
Explanation for the switches:
--flush was needed, because otherwise the output is not well live-observable, coming in big chunks
--quiet supresses the own output of the script tool
-c, --command directly provides the command to execute, piping from my command to script did not work for me (no colors)
--return to make script propagate the exit code of my command so I know if my command has failed
I found that using script to preserve colors when piping to less doesn't really work (less is all messed up and on exit, bash is all messed up) because less is interactive. script seems to really mess up input coming from stdin even after exiting.
So instead of running:
script -q /dev/null cargo build | less -R
I redirect /dev/null to it before piping to less:
script -q /dev/null cargo build < /dev/null | less -R
So now script doesn't mess with stdin and gets me exactly what I want. It's the equivalent of command | less but it preserves colors while also continuing to read new content appended to the file (other methods I tried wouldn't do that).
some programs remove colorization when they realize the output is not a TTY (i.e. when you redirect them into another program). You can tell some of those to use color forcefully, and tell the pager to turn on colorization, for example use less -R
This question over on superuser helped me when my other answer (involving tee) didn't work. It involves using unbuffer to make the command think it's running from a shell.
I installed it using sudo apt install expect tcl rather than sudo apt-get install expect-dev.
I needed to use this method when redirecting the output of apt, ironically.
I use tee: pipe the command's output to teefilename and it'll keep the colour. And if you don't want to see the output on the screen (which is what tee is for: showing and redirecting output at the same time) then just send the output of tee to /dev/null:
command| teefilename> /dev/null