I'm making some command line tools that output progress information as it runs to STDERR, like
found document
using cached version
analyzing
etc.
Should I output full sentences with capitalized first letters and periods at the end, or is this kind of terse uncapitalized output OK? What's the expert consensus on this?
My favorite method to denote progress is a 'spinner'. Here is one I implemented using bash. The first parameter is the PID of the process you want to track and the second parameter is an optional message. The PID is most easily passed via $(pgrep <some_process_name>)
#!/bin/bash
spinner() {
[[ -n "$2" ]] && echo -n "$2 "
if [[ ! $1 =~ ^[[:digit:]]+$ ]]; then
return
fi
while [[ -d /proc/$1 ]]; do
for c in '/' '-' '\' '|'; do
printf "%c\b" "$c"
sleep 0.1
done
done
printf " \n"
}
du /usr > /dev/null 2>&1 & # Example program to monitor
spinner $(pgrep du) "Optional Message Here"
Related
Sometimes I need to find a specific serial in a box with many items, so I wrote a simple Bash script that allows me to use a barcode scanner to scan hundreds of barcodes until a match is found, at which point the screen flashes (so I can see it from the corner of my eyes while looking at the box).
The script works great, but it only checks against one specific serial number provided by the user. Here's the code:
#!/bin/bash
INPUT=''
SCAN=''
SN=''
I='0'
clear
printf "Enter serial\n"
read INPUT
SN=`printf "${INPUT}" | tr '[:lower:]' '[:upper:]'`
# Keep comparing scans to needed serial until a match is found
while [[ "${SCAN}" != *"${SN}"* ]];
do
clear
printf "Looking for [ "${SN}" ]\n"
printf "Please scan barcode\n"
read INPUT
SCAN=`printf "${INPUT}" | tr '[:lower:]' '[:upper:]'`
done
# Flash screen when match is found
while [[ "${I}" -lt 3 ]];
do
printf '\e[?5h' && sleep 0.3
printf '\e[?5l' && sleep 0.3
I=$[${I}+1]
done
printf "FOUND\n"
Today I spent hours trying to implement a way to pass multiple possible serial numbers as command line arguments, but I can't seem to get it working. I would like to be able to pass a small, manageable number of possible serials, like this:
$ ./script.sh sn1 sn2 sn3 sn4 sn5
And for the script continue asking for input until I come across the item I am looking for.
I've studied the handling of shell arguments, but I can't seem to "massage" the above while loop to get it to check if the scanned serial exists in the array (created from the command line arguments passed):
#!/bin/bash
snList=( "$#" )
INPUT=''
SCAN=''
SN=''
I='0'
clear
#displaying "things" so I can see what each variable contains (debugging)
printf "$#\n"
printf "$0\n"
printf "$*\n"
printf "$0\n"
printf "$1\n"
printf "$2\n"
printf "$3\n"
printf "snList: $snList\n"
printf "snList[#]: ${snList[#]}\n"
printf "snList[*]: ${snList[*]}\n"
# Keep comparing scans to needed serial until a match is found
while [[ ! " ${snList[*]} " =~ "${SCAN}" ]];
do
clear
printf "Looking for [ "$*" ]\n"
printf "Please scan barcode\n"
read INPUT
SCAN=`printf "${INPUT}" | tr '[:lower:]' '[:upper:]'`
done
I've tried using ${snList[#]} in the loop as well, same result, it behaves like a match was found immediately, without even asking for a scan (indicating that the content of the while loop is not being executed).
Any help will be immensely appreciated, I think I am close, but I can't figure out what I am doing wrong.
Thanks in advance!
Something like this maybe?
#!/usr/bin/env bash
to_compare_input=("$#")
exglob_pattern_input=$(IFS='|'; printf '%s' "#(${to_compare_input[*]})")
until [[ $user_input == $exglob_pattern_input ]]; do
read -r user_input
done
Run the script with the the following arguments.
bash -x ./myscript foo bar baz more
Output
+ to_compare_input=("$#")
++ IFS='|'
++ printf %s '#(foo|bar|baz|more)'
+ exglob_pattern_input='#(foo|bar|baz|more)'
+ [[ '' == #(foo|bar|baz|more) ]]
+ read -r user_input
papa
+ [[ papa == #(foo|bar|baz|more) ]]
+ read -r user_input
mama
+ [[ mama == #(foo|bar|baz|more) ]]
+ read -r user_input
baz
+ [[ baz == #(foo|bar|baz|more) ]]
The first user input is empty since the builtinread has not been executed to ask for the user's input. As shown at the debug message.
+ [[ '' == #(foo|bar|baz|more) ]]
The second (assuming the user has entered papa) is papa
The third (assuming the user has entered mama) is mama
The last is baz which breaks out of off the until loop, because it belongs to the $extglob_pattern_input, which is an extglob feature.
A regex is also an alternative using the =~ operator.
#!/usr/bin/env bash
to_compare_input=("$#")
regex_pattern_input=$(IFS='|'; printf '%s' "^(${to_compare_input[*]})$")
until [[ $user_input =~ $regex_pattern_input ]]; do
read -r user_input
done
Run the script same as before.
Using two loops which was suggested in the comments section.
#!/usr/bin/env bash
to_compare_input=("$#")
inarray() {
local n=$1 h
shift
for h; do
[[ $n == "$h" ]] && return
done
return 1
}
until inarray "$user_input" "${to_compare_input[#]}"; do
read -r user_input
done
As for the tr if your version of bash supports the ^^ and ,, for uppercase and lowercase parameter expansion. use ${user_input^^}
until [[ ${user_input^^} == $exglob_pattern_input ]]; do
until [[ ${user_input^^} =~ $regex_pattern_input ]]; do
until inarray "${user_input^^}" "${to_compare_input[#]}"; do
Assuming no spaces in the bar code texts. You can do something like this
while read -r INPUT
do
#Append spaces to prevent substring matching
if [[ $(echo " $# " | grep -i " ${INPUT} " | wc -l) -eq 1 ]]
then
break
fi
done
I've done a shell (bash) script that applies predefined rules to files dropped into the terminal.
It works quite well but because it uses 'read' it requires to press Enter once the files are dropped to the term window
This is part of the current code
while true ; do
echo "Drop file(s) here then press [ENTER]:"
echo "( x,q or exit,quit )"
read -p "> " read_file
while read dropped_file ;do
if [ -e ${dropped_file} ] ; then
...bunch of code here...
else
[[ "${dropped_file}" == *[xXqQ]* ]] && exit 1
fi
done <<< $(echo ${read_file} | tr " " "\n")
clear
done
I'd like to omit to press Enter each time I drop files and I was wondering if there is some wizardry to avoid to interact with the keyboard, except when I want to quit the script
Any help would be appreciated
Thanks in advance
EDIT
I've solved with this
while true ; do
read -sn1 read_file
while read splitted_filename; do
dropped_file="${dropped_file}${splitted_filename}"
done <<< $(echo ${read_file})
functionAction
[[ "${dropped_file}" == [xXqQ] ]] && exit 1
done
I think you can use the yes, printf, or the expect command and use the \n key, which should be able to perform what you are looking for.
So I have a file called "nouns" that looks like this:
English word:matching Spanish word
Englsih word:matching Spanish word
..etc etc
I need to make a program that list all the English words with an option to quit. The program displays the English words and ask the user for the word he wants translated and he can also type "quit" to exit.
This is what I have so far that shows me the list in English
select english in $(cut -d: -f1 nouns)
do
if [ "$english" = 'quit' ]
then
exit 0
fi
done
I know that I need to run a command that pulls up the second column (-f2) by searching for the corresponding English word like this
result=$(grep -w $english nouns|cut -d: -f2)
My end result should just out put the corresponding Spanish word. I am just not sure how to get all the parts to fit together. I know its based in a type of "if" format (I think) but do I start a separate if statement for the grep line?
Thanks
You need a loop in which you ask for input from user. The rest is putting things together with the correct control flow. See my code below:
while :
do
read -p "Enter word (or quit): " input
if [ "$input" = "quit" ]; then
echo "exiting ..."
break
else
echo "searching..."
result=$(grep $input nouns | cut -d ':' -f 2)
if [[ $result ]]; then
echo "$result"
else
echo "not found"
fi
fi
done
dfile=./dict
declare -A dict
while IFS=: read -r en es; do
dict[$en]=$es
done < "$dfile"
PS3="Select word>"
select ans in "${!dict[#]}" "quit program"; do
case "$REPLY" in
[0-9]*) w=$ans;;
*) w=$REPLY;;
esac
case "$w" in
quit*) exit 0;;
*) echo "${dict[$w]}" ;;
esac
done
You want to run this in a constant while loop, only breaking the loop if the user enters "quit." Get the input from the user using read to put it in a variable. As for the searching, this can be done pretty easily with awk (which is designed to work with delimited files like this) or grep.
#!/bin/sh
while true; do
read -p "Enter english word: " word
if [ "$word" = "quit" ]; then
break
fi
# Take your pick, either of these will work:
# awk -F: -v "w=$word" '{if($1==w){print $2; exit}}' nouns
grep -Pom1 "(?<=^$word:).*" nouns
done
This is just a simple problem but I don't understand why I got an error here. This is just a for loop inside an if statement.
This is my code:
#!/bin/bash
if (!( -f $argv[1])) then
echo "Argv must be text file";
else if ($#argv != 1) then
echo "Max argument is 1";
else if (-f $argv[1]) then
for i in `cut -d ',' -f2 $argv[1]`
do
ping -c 3 $i;
echo "finish pinging host $i"
done
fi
Error is in line 16, which is the line after fi, that is a blank line .....
Can someone please explain why i have this error ????
many, many errors.
If I try to stay close to your example code:
#!/bin/sh
if [ ! -f "${1}" ]
then
echo "Argv must be text file";
else if [ "${#}" -ne 1 ]
then
echo "Max argument is 1";
else if [ -f "${1}" ]
then
for i in $(cat "${1}" | cut -d',' -f2 )
do
ping -c 3 "${i}";
echo "finish pinging host ${i}"
done
fi
fi
fi
another way, exiting each time the condition is not met :
#!/bin/sh
[ "${#}" -ne 1 ] && { echo "There should be 1 (and only 1) argument" ; exit 1 ; }
[ ! -f "${1}" ] && { echo "Argv must be a file." ; exit 1 ; }
[ -f "${1}" ] && {
for i in $(cat "${1}" | cut -d',' -f2 )
do
ping -c 3 "${i}";
echo "finish pinging host ${i}"
done
}
#!/usr/local/bin/bash -x
if [ ! -f "${1}" ]
then
echo "Argument must be a text file."
else
while-loop-script "${1}"
fi
I have broken this up, because I personally consider it extremely bad form to nest one function inside another; or truthfully to even have more than one function in the same file. I don't care about file size, either; I've got several scripts which are 300-500 bytes long. I'm learning FORTH; fractalism in that sense is a virtue.
# while-loop-script
while read line
do
IFS="#"
ping -c 3 "${line}"
IFS=" "
done < "${1}"
Don't use cat in order to feed individual file lines to a script; it will always fail, and bash will try and execute the output as a literal command. I thought that sed printing would work, and it often does, but for some reason it very often substitutes spaces for newlines, which is extremely annoying as well.
The only absolutely bulletproof method of feeding a line to a script that I know of, which will preserve all space and formatting, is to use while-read loops, rather than substituted for cat or for sed loops, as mentioned.
Something else which you will need to do, in order to be sure about preserving whitespace, is to set the internal field seperator (IFS) to something that you know your file will not contain, and then resetting it back to whitespace at the end of the loop.
For every opening if, you must have a corresponding closing fi. This is also true for else if. Better use elif instead
if test ! -f "$1"; then
echo "Argv must be text file";
elif test $# != 1; then
echo "Max argument is 1";
elif test -f "$1"; then
for i in `cut -d ',' -f2 "$1"`
do
ping -c 3 $i;
echo "finish pinging host $i"
done
fi
There's also no argv variable. If you want to access the command line arguments, you must use $1, $2, ...
Next point is $#argv, this evaluates to $# (number of command line args) and argv. This looks a lot like perl.
Furthermore, testing is done with either test ... or [ ... ], not ( ... )
And finally, you should enclose at least your command line arguments in double quotes "$1". If you don't and there is no command line argument, you have for example
test ! -f
instead of
test ! -f ""
This lets the test fail and go on to the second if, instead of echoing the proper message.
I'm trying to get the first character of a variable, but I'm getting a Bad substitution error. Can anyone help me fix it?
code is:
while IFS=$'\n' read line
do
if [ ! ${line:0:1} == "#"] # Error on this line
then
eval echo "$line"
eval createSymlink $line
fi
done < /some/file.txt
Am I doing something wrong or is there a better way of doing this?
-- EDIT --
As requested - here's some sample input which is stored in /some/file.txt
$MOZ_HOME/mobile/android/chrome/content/browser.js
$MOZ_HOME/mobile/android/locales/en-US/chrome/browser.properties
$MOZ_HOME/mobile/android/components/ContentPermissionPrompt.js
To get the first character of a variable you need to say:
v="hello"
$ echo "${v:0:1}"
h
However, your code has a syntax error:
[ ! ${line:0:1} == "#"]
# ^-- missing space
So this can do the trick:
$ a="123456"
$ [ ! "${a:0:1}" == "#" ] && echo "doesnt start with #"
doesnt start with #
$ a="#123456"
$ [ ! "${a:0:1}" == "#" ] && echo "doesnt start with #"
$
Also it can be done like this:
$ a="#123456"
$ [ "$(expr substr $a 1 1)" != "#" ] && echo "does not start with #"
$
$ a="123456"
$ [ "$(expr substr $a 1 1)" != "#" ] && echo "does not start with #"
does not start with #
Update
Based on your update, this works to me:
while IFS=$'\n' read line
do
echo $line
if [ ! "${line:0:1}" == "#" ] # Error on this line
then
eval echo "$line"
eval createSymlink $line
fi
done < file
Adding the missing space (as suggested in fedorqui's answer ;) ) works for me.
An alternative method/syntax
Here's what I would do in Bash if I want to check the first character of a string
if [[ $line != "#"* ]]
On the right hand side of ==, the quoted part is treated literally whereas * is a wildcard for any sequence of character.
For more information, see the last part of Conditional Constructs of Bash reference manual:
When the ‘==’ and ‘!=’ operators are used, the string to the right of the operator is considered a pattern and matched according to the rules described below in Pattern Matching
Checking that you're using the right shell
If you are getting errors such as "Bad substitution error" and "[[: not found" (see comment) even though your syntax is fine (and works fine for others), it might indicate that you are using the wrong shell (i.e. not Bash).
So to make sure you are using Bash to run the script, either
make the script executable and use an appropriate shebang e.g. #!/bin/bash
or execute it via bash my_script
Also note that sh is not necessarily bash, sometimes it can be dash (e.g. in Ubuntu) or just plain ol' Bourne shell.
Try this:
while IFS=$'\n' read line
do
if ! [ "${line:0:1}" = "#" ]; then
eval echo "$line"
eval createSymlink $line
fi
done < /some/file.txt
or you can use the following for your if syntax:
if [[ ! ${line:0:1} == "#" ]]; then
TIMTOWTDI ^^
while IFS='' read -r line
do
case "${line}" in
"#"*) echo "${line}"
;;
*) createSymlink ${line}
;;
esac
done < /some/file.txt
Note: I dropped the eval, which could be needed in some (rare!) cases (and are dangerous usually).
Note2: I added a "safer" IFS & read (-r, raw) but you can revert to your own if it is better suited. Note that it still reads line by line.
Note3: I took the habit of using always ${var} instead of $var ... works for me (easy to find out vars in complex text, and easy to see where they begin and end at all times) but not necessary here.
Note4: you can also change the test to : *"#"*) if some of the (comments?) lines can have spaces or tabs before the '#' (and none of the symlink lines does contain a '#')