Elegant way for verbose mode in scripts? - bash

Question

When I write bash scripts I usually get the verbose mode this way (simplified):
_V=0
while getopts "v" OPTION
do
case $OPTION in
v) _V=1
;;
esac
done
and then every time I want a "verbose output" I type this:
[ $_V -eq 1 ] && echo "verbose mode on" || echo "verbose mode off"
or for example this:
[ $_V -eq 1 ] && command -v || command
Is there a way to do it more elegant? I was thinking about defining a function named "verbose" and type it instead of [ $_V -eq 1 ], but this would only be a tiny improvement.
I'm sure, there is more common way to do it…

Answer 1

As you noticed, you can define some log functions like log, log_debug, log_error, etc.
function log () {
if [[ $_V -eq 1 ]]; then
echo "$#"
fi
}
It can help increasing your main code readability and hide show\nonshow logic into logging function.
log "some text"
If _V(global variable) is equal 1 "some text" will be printed, in other case it will not.

Answer 2

After reading all other posts I came up with this
# set verbose level to info
__VERBOSE=6
declare -A LOG_LEVELS
# https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Syslog#Severity_level
LOG_LEVELS=([0]="emerg" [1]="alert" [2]="crit" [3]="err" [4]="warning" [5]="notice" [6]="info" [7]="debug")
function .log () {
local LEVEL=${1}
shift
if [ ${__VERBOSE} -ge ${LEVEL} ]; then
echo "[${LOG_LEVELS[$LEVEL]}]" "$#"
fi
}
Then you can simply use it like this
# verbose error
.log 3 "Something is wrong here"
Which will output
[error] Something is wrong here

Answer 3

#!/bin/bash
# A flexible verbosity redirection function
# John C. Petrucci (http://johncpetrucci.com)
# 2013-10-19
# Allows your script to accept varying levels of verbosity flags and give appropriate feedback via file descriptors.
# Example usage: ./this [-v[v[v]]]
verbosity=2 #Start counting at 2 so that any increase to this will result in a minimum of file descriptor 3. You should leave this alone.
maxverbosity=5 #The highest verbosity we use / allow to be displayed. Feel free to adjust.
while getopts ":v" opt; do
case $opt in
v) (( verbosity=verbosity+1 ))
;;
esac
done
printf "%s %d\n" "Verbosity level set to:" "$verbosity"
for v in $(seq 3 $verbosity) #Start counting from 3 since 1 and 2 are standards (stdout/stderr).
do
(( "$v" <= "$maxverbosity" )) && echo This would display $v
(( "$v" <= "$maxverbosity" )) && eval exec "$v>&2" #Don't change anything higher than the maximum verbosity allowed.
done
for v in $(seq $(( verbosity+1 )) $maxverbosity ) #From the verbosity level one higher than requested, through the maximum;
do
(( "$v" > "2" )) && echo This would not display $v
(( "$v" > "2" )) && eval exec "$v>/dev/null" #Redirect these to bitbucket, provided that they don't match stdout and stderr.
done
# Some confirmations:
printf "%s\n" "This message is seen at verbosity level 3 and above." >&3
printf "%s\n" "This message is seen at verbosity level 4 and above." >&4
printf "%s\n" "This message is seen at verbosity level 5 and above." >&5

Answer 4

I also came up with this function to do a quick ifelse:
function verbose () {
[[ $_V -eq 1 ]] && return 0 || return 1
}
This executes a command if $_V is set to 1. Use it like this:
verbose && command #command will be executed if $_V == 1
or
verbose && command -v || command # execute 'command -v' if $_V==1, else execute 'command'

Answer 5

If you want to avoid doing an "if" statement every single time you want to log something, you can try this approach (which is how I do it).
The idea is that instead of calling log, you call $echoLog instead. So, if you are in verbose mode, $echoLog will just be echo, but in non-verbose mode, it is a function that prints nothing and just ignores the arguments.
Here's some code you can copy.
# Use `$echoLog` everywhere you print verbose logging messages to console
# By default, it is disabled and will be enabled with the `-v` or `--verbose` flags
declare echoLog='silentEcho'
function silentEcho() {
:
}
# Somewhere else in your script's setup, do something like this
while [[ $# > 0 ]]; do
case "$1" in
-v|--verbose) echoLog='echo'; ;;
esac
shift;
done
Now, you can just drop lines like $echoLog "Doing something verbose log worthy" anywhere you want.

Answer 6

A first try at a more flexible system with verbosity levels (Bash 4):
# CONFIG SECTION
# verbosity level definitions
config[verb_levels]='debug info status warning error critical fatal'
# verbosity levels that are to be user-selectable (0-this value)
config[verb_override]=3
# user-selected verbosity levels (0=none, 1=warnings, 2=warnings+info, 3=warning+info+debug)
config[verbosity]=2
# FUNCTION DEFINITIONS SECTION
_messages() {
# shortcut functions for messages
# non overridable levels exit with errlevel
# safe eval, it only uses two (namespaced) values, and a few builtins
local verbosity macro level=0
for verbosity in ${config[verb_levels]}; do
IFS="" read -rd'' macro <<MACRO
_$verbosity() {
$( (( $level <= ${config[verb_override]} )) && echo "(( \${config[verbosity]} + $level > ${config[verb_override]} )) &&" ) echo "${verbosity}: \$#";
$( (( $level > ${config[verb_override]} )) && echo "exit $(( level - ${config[verb_override]} ));" )
}
MACRO
eval "$macro"
(( level++ ))
done
}
# INITIALIZATION SECTION
_messages
After initialization, anywhere in your code you can use things like:
! (( $# )) && _error "parameter expected"
[[ -f somefile ]] && _warning "file $somefile already exists"
_info "some info"
_status "running command"
if (( ${config[verbosity]} <= 1 )); then
command
else
command -v
fi
# explicitly changing verbosity at run time
old_verbosity=${config[verbosity]}
config[verbosity]=1
etc.

Answer 7

verbose=false
while getopts "v" OPTION
do
case $OPTION in
v) verbose=true
;;
esac
done
Then
$verbose && echo "Verbose mode on" || echo "Verbose mode off"
This will execute /bin/true or /bin/false, returning 0 or 1 respectively.

Answer 8

To avoid using multiple if statements or using a variable to hold a function name how about declaring different functions based on the verbosity!
This works for ALL bourne shell derivatives not just bash!
#verbose=verbose_true # uncomment to make script verbose
if [ "$verbose" ]; then
log() { echo "$#"; }
else
log() { :; }
fi
log This Script is Verbose
NOTE: the use of "verbose=verbose_true" makes script tracing a lot nicer
but you can make that one if however you like.

Answer 9

I would propose a modified version of #fentas's answer:
# set verbose level to info
__VERBOSE=6
declare -A LOG_LEVELS
# https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Syslog#Severity_level
LOG_LEVELS=([0]="emerg" [1]="alert" [2]="crit" [3]="err" [4]="warning" [5]="notice" [6]="info" [7]="debug")
function .log () {
local LEVEL=${1}
shift
if [ ${__VERBOSE} -ge ${LEVEL} ]; then
if [ -t 0 ]; then
# seems we are in an interactive shell
echo "[${LOG_LEVELS[$LEVEL]}]" "$#" >&2
else
# seems we are in a cron job
logger -p "${LOG_LEVELS[$LEVEL]}" -t "$0[$$]" -- "$*"
fi
fi
}