I'm trying to create a system for my scripts -
Each script will be located in a folder, which is the command itself.
The script itself will act as a sub-command.
For example, a script called "who" inside a directory called "git",
will allow me to run the script using git who in the command line.
Also, I would like to create a sub command to a psuedo-command, meaning a command not currently available. E.g. some-arbitrary-command sub-command.
Is that somehow possible?
I thought of somehow extending https://github.com/basecamp/sub to accomplish the task.
EDIT 1
#!/usr/bin/env bash
command=`basename $0`
subcommand="$1"
case "$subcommand" in
"" | "-h" | "--help" )
echo "$command: Some description here" >&2
;;
* )
subcommand_path="$(command -v "$command-$subcommand" || true)"
if [[ -x "$subcommand_path" ]]; then
shift
exec "$subcommand_path" "${#}"
return $?
else
echo "$command: no such command \`$subcommand'" >&2
exit 1
fi
;;
esac
This is currently the script I run for new custom-made commands.
Since it's so generic, I just copy-paste it.
I still wonder though -
can it be generic enough to just recognize the folder name and create the script by its folder name?
One issue though is that it doesn't seem to override the default command name, if it supposed to replace it (E.g. git).
EDIT 2
After tinkering around a bit this is what I came to eventuall:
#!/usr/bin/env bash
COMMAND=`basename $0`
SUBCOMMAND="$1"
COMMAND_DIR="$HOME/.zsh/scripts/$COMMAND"
case "$SUBCOMMAND" in
"" | "-h" | "--help" )
cat "$COMMAND_DIR/help.txt" 2>/dev/null ||
command $COMMAND "${#}"
;;
* )
SUBCOMMAND_path="$(command -v "$COMMAND-$SUBCOMMAND" || true)"
if [[ -x "$SUBCOMMAND_path" ]]; then
shift
exec "$SUBCOMMAND_path" "${#}"
else
command $COMMAND "${#}"
fi
;;
esac
This is a generic script called "helper-sub" I symlink to all the script directories I have (E.g. ln -s $HOME/bin/helper-sub $HOME/bin/ssh).
in my zshrc I created this to call all the scripts:
#!/usr/bin/env bash
PATH=${PATH}:$(find $HOME/.zsh/scripts -type d | tr '\n' ':' | sed 's/:$//')
export PATH
typeset -U path
for aliasPath in `find $HOME/.zsh/scripts -type d`; do
aliasName=`echo $aliasPath | awk -F/ '{print $NF}'`
alias ${aliasName}=${aliasPath}/${aliasName}
done
unset aliasPath
Examples can be seen here: https://github.com/iwfmp/zsh/tree/master/scripts
You can't make a directory executable as a script, but you can create a wrapper that calls the scripts in the directory.
You can do this either with a function (in your profile script or a file in your FPATH) or with a wrapper script.
A simple function might look like:
git() {
local subPath='/path/to/your/git'
local sub="${1}" ; shift
if [[ -x "${subPath}/${1}" ]]; then
"${subPath}/${sub}" "${#}"
return $?
else
printf '%s\n' "git: Unknown sub-command '${sub}'." >&2
return 1
fi
}
(This is the same way that the sub project you linked works, just simplified.)
Of course, if you actually want to create a sub-command for git specifically (and that wasn't just an example), you'll need to make sure that the built-in git commands still work. In that case you could do like this:
git() {
local subPath='/path/to/your/git'
local sub="${1}"
if [[ -x "${subPath}/${sub}" ]]; then
shift
"${subPath}/${sub}" "${#}"
return $?
else
command git "${#}"
return 1
fi
}
But it might be worth pointing out in that case that git supports adding arbitrary aliases via git config:
git config --global alias.who '!/path/to/your/git/who'
Is it possible to find out the full path to the script that is currently executing in KornShell (ksh)?
i.e. if my script is in /opt/scripts/myscript.ksh, can I programmatically inside that script discover /opt/scripts/myscript.ksh ?
Thanks,
You could use:
## __SCRIPTNAME - name of the script without the path
##
typeset -r __SCRIPTNAME="${0##*/}"
## __SCRIPTDIR - path of the script (as entered by the user!)
##
__SCRIPTDIR="${0%/*}"
## __REAL_SCRIPTDIR - path of the script (real path, maybe a link)
##
__REAL_SCRIPTDIR=$( cd -P -- "$(dirname -- "$(command -v -- "$0")")" && pwd -P )
In korn shell, all of these $0 solutions fail if you are sourcing in the script in question. The correct way to get what you want is to use $_
$ cat bar
echo dollar under is $_
echo dollar zero is $0
$ ./bar
dollar under is ./bar
dollar zero is ./bar
$ . ./bar
dollar under is bar
dollar zero is -ksh
Notice the last line there? Use $_. At least in Korn. YMMV in bash, csh, et al..
Well it took me a while but this one is so simple it screams.
_SCRIPTDIR=$(cd $(dirname $0);echo $PWD)
since the CD operates in the spawned shell with $() it doesn't affect the current script.
How the script was called is stored in the variable $0. You can use readlink to get the absolute file name:
readlink -f "$0"
The variable $RPATH contains the relative path to the real file or the real path for a real file.
CURPATH=$( cd -P -- "$(dirname -- "$(command -v -- "$0")")" && pwd -P )
CURLOC=$CURPATH/`basename $0`
if [ `ls -dl $CURLOC |grep -c "^l" 2>/dev/null` -ne 0 ];then
ROFFSET=`ls -ld $CURLOC|cut -d ">" -f2 2>/dev/null`
RPATH=`ls -ld $CURLOC/$ROFFSET 2>/dev/null`
else
RPATH=$CURLOC
fi
echo $RPATH
This is what I did:
if [[ $0 != "/"* ]]; then
DIR=`pwd`/`dirname $0`
else
DIR=`dirname $0`
fi
readlink -f would be the best if it was portable, because it resolves every links found for both directories and files.
On mac os x there is no readlink -f (except maybe via macports), so you can only use readlink to get the destination of a specific symbolic link file.
The $(cd -P ... pwd -P) technique is nice but only works to resolve links for directories leading to the script, it doesn't work if the script itself is a symlink
Also, one case that wasn't mentioned : when you launch a script by passing it as an argument to a shell (/bin/sh /path/to/myscript.sh), $0 is not usable in this case
I took a look to mysql "binaries", many of them are actually shell scripts ; and now i understand why they ask for a --basedir option or need to be launched from a specific working directory ; this is because there is no good solution to locate the targeted script
This works also, although it won't give the "true" path if it's a link. It's simpler, but less exact.
SCRIPT_PATH="$(whence ${0})"
Try which command.
which scriptname
will give you the full qualified name of the script along with its absolute path
I upgraded the Edward Staudt's answer, to be able to deal with absolute-path symbolic links, and with chains of links too.
DZERO=$0
while true; do
echo "Trying to find real dir for script $DZERO"
CPATH=$( cd -P -- "$(dirname -- "$(command -v -- "$DZERO")")" && pwd -P )
CFILE=$CPATH/`basename $DZERO`
if [ `ls -dl $CFILE | grep -c "^l" 2>/dev/null` -eq 0 ];then
break
fi
LNKTO=`ls -ld $CFILE | cut -d ">" -f2 | tr -d " " 2>/dev/null`
DZERO=`cd $CPATH ; command -v $LNKTO`
done
Ugly, but works...
After run this, the path is $CPATH and the file is $CFILE
Try using this:
dir = $(dirname $0)
Using $_ provides the last command.
>source my_script
Works if I issue the command twice:
>source my_script
>source my_script
If I use a different sequence of commands:
>who
>source my_script
The $_ variable returns "who"
How would I validate that a program exists, in a way that will either return an error and exit, or continue with the script?
It seems like it should be easy, but it's been stumping me.
Answer
POSIX compatible:
command -v <the_command>
Example use:
if ! command -v <the_command> &> /dev/null
then
echo "<the_command> could not be found"
exit
fi
For Bash specific environments:
hash <the_command> # For regular commands. Or...
type <the_command> # To check built-ins and keywords
Explanation
Avoid which. Not only is it an external process you're launching for doing very little (meaning builtins like hash, type or command are way cheaper), you can also rely on the builtins to actually do what you want, while the effects of external commands can easily vary from system to system.
Why care?
Many operating systems have a which that doesn't even set an exit status, meaning the if which foo won't even work there and will always report that foo exists, even if it doesn't (note that some POSIX shells appear to do this for hash too).
Many operating systems make which do custom and evil stuff like change the output or even hook into the package manager.
So, don't use which. Instead use one of these:
command -v foo >/dev/null 2>&1 || { echo >&2 "I require foo but it's not installed. Aborting."; exit 1; }
type foo >/dev/null 2>&1 || { echo >&2 "I require foo but it's not installed. Aborting."; exit 1; }
hash foo 2>/dev/null || { echo >&2 "I require foo but it's not installed. Aborting."; exit 1; }
(Minor side-note: some will suggest 2>&- is the same 2>/dev/null but shorter – this is untrue. 2>&- closes FD 2 which causes an error in the program when it tries to write to stderr, which is very different from successfully writing to it and discarding the output (and dangerous!))
If your hash bang is /bin/sh then you should care about what POSIX says. type and hash's exit codes aren't terribly well defined by POSIX, and hash is seen to exit successfully when the command doesn't exist (haven't seen this with type yet). command's exit status is well defined by POSIX, so that one is probably the safest to use.
If your script uses bash though, POSIX rules don't really matter anymore and both type and hash become perfectly safe to use. type now has a -P to search just the PATH and hash has the side-effect that the command's location will be hashed (for faster lookup next time you use it), which is usually a good thing since you probably check for its existence in order to actually use it.
As a simple example, here's a function that runs gdate if it exists, otherwise date:
gnudate() {
if hash gdate 2>/dev/null; then
gdate "$#"
else
date "$#"
fi
}
Alternative with a complete feature set
You can use scripts-common to reach your need.
To check if something is installed, you can do:
checkBin <the_command> || errorMessage "This tool requires <the_command>. Install it please, and then run this tool again."
The following is a portable way to check whether a command exists in $PATH and is executable:
[ -x "$(command -v foo)" ]
Example:
if ! [ -x "$(command -v git)" ]; then
echo 'Error: git is not installed.' >&2
exit 1
fi
The executable check is needed because bash returns a non-executable file if no executable file with that name is found in $PATH.
Also note that if a non-executable file with the same name as the executable exists earlier in $PATH, dash returns the former, even though the latter would be executed. This is a bug and is in violation of the POSIX standard. [Bug report] [Standard]
Edit: This seems to be fixed as of dash 0.5.11 (Debian 11).
In addition, this will fail if the command you are looking for has been defined as an alias.
I agree with lhunath to discourage use of which, and his solution is perfectly valid for Bash users. However, to be more portable, command -v shall be used instead:
$ command -v foo >/dev/null 2>&1 || { echo "I require foo but it's not installed. Aborting." >&2; exit 1; }
Command command is POSIX compliant. See here for its specification: command - execute a simple command
Note: type is POSIX compliant, but type -P is not.
It depends on whether you want to know whether it exists in one of the directories in the $PATH variable or whether you know the absolute location of it. If you want to know if it is in the $PATH variable, use
if which programname >/dev/null; then
echo exists
else
echo does not exist
fi
otherwise use
if [ -x /path/to/programname ]; then
echo exists
else
echo does not exist
fi
The redirection to /dev/null/ in the first example suppresses the output of the which program.
I have a function defined in my .bashrc that makes this easier.
command_exists () {
type "$1" &> /dev/null ;
}
Here's an example of how it's used (from my .bash_profile.)
if command_exists mvim ; then
export VISUAL="mvim --nofork"
fi
Expanding on #lhunath's and #GregV's answers, here's the code for the people who want to easily put that check inside an if statement:
exists()
{
command -v "$1" >/dev/null 2>&1
}
Here's how to use it:
if exists bash; then
echo 'Bash exists!'
else
echo 'Your system does not have Bash'
fi
Try using:
test -x filename
or
[ -x filename ]
From the Bash manpage under Conditional Expressions:
-x file
True if file exists and is executable.
To use hash, as #lhunath suggests, in a Bash script:
hash foo &> /dev/null
if [ $? -eq 1 ]; then
echo >&2 "foo not found."
fi
This script runs hash and then checks if the exit code of the most recent command, the value stored in $?, is equal to 1. If hash doesn't find foo, the exit code will be 1. If foo is present, the exit code will be 0.
&> /dev/null redirects standard error and standard output from hash so that it doesn't appear onscreen and echo >&2 writes the message to standard error.
Command -v works fine if the POSIX_BUILTINS option is set for the <command> to test for, but it can fail if not. (It has worked for me for years, but I recently ran into one where it didn't work.)
I find the following to be more failproof:
test -x "$(which <command>)"
Since it tests for three things: path, existence and execution permission.
There are a ton of options here, but I was surprised no quick one-liners. This is what I used at the beginning of my scripts:
[[ "$(command -v mvn)" ]] || { echo "mvn is not installed" 1>&2 ; exit 1; }
[[ "$(command -v java)" ]] || { echo "java is not installed" 1>&2 ; exit 1; }
This is based on the selected answer here and another source.
If you check for program existence, you are probably going to run it later anyway. Why not try to run it in the first place?
if foo --version >/dev/null 2>&1; then
echo Found
else
echo Not found
fi
It's a more trustworthy check that the program runs than merely looking at PATH directories and file permissions.
Plus you can get some useful result from your program, such as its version.
Of course the drawbacks are that some programs can be heavy to start and some don't have a --version option to immediately (and successfully) exit.
Check for multiple dependencies and inform status to end users
for cmd in latex pandoc; do
printf '%-10s' "$cmd"
if hash "$cmd" 2>/dev/null; then
echo OK
else
echo missing
fi
done
Sample output:
latex OK
pandoc missing
Adjust the 10 to the maximum command length. It is not automatic, because I don't see a non-verbose POSIX way to do it:
How can I align the columns of a space separated table in Bash?
Check if some apt packages are installed with dpkg -s and install them otherwise.
See: Check if an apt-get package is installed and then install it if it's not on Linux
It was previously mentioned at: How can I check if a program exists from a Bash script?
I never did get the previous answers to work on the box I have access to. For one, type has been installed (doing what more does). So the builtin directive is needed. This command works for me:
if [ `builtin type -p vim` ]; then echo "TRUE"; else echo "FALSE"; fi
I wanted the same question answered but to run within a Makefile.
install:
#if [[ ! -x "$(shell command -v ghead)" ]]; then \
echo 'ghead does not exist. Please install it.'; \
exit -1; \
fi
It could be simpler, just:
#!/usr/bin/env bash
set -x
# if local program 'foo' returns 1 (doesn't exist) then...
if ! type -P foo; then
echo 'crap, no foo'
else
echo 'sweet, we have foo!'
fi
Change foo to vi to get the other condition to fire.
hash foo 2>/dev/null: works with Z shell (Zsh), Bash, Dash and ash.
type -p foo: it appears to work with Z shell, Bash and ash (BusyBox), but not Dash (it interprets -p as an argument).
command -v foo: works with Z shell, Bash, Dash, but not ash (BusyBox) (-ash: command: not found).
Also note that builtin is not available with ash and Dash.
zsh only, but very useful for zsh scripting (e.g. when writing completion scripts):
The zsh/parameter module gives access to, among other things, the internal commands hash table. From man zshmodules:
THE ZSH/PARAMETER MODULE
The zsh/parameter module gives access to some of the internal hash ta‐
bles used by the shell by defining some special parameters.
[...]
commands
This array gives access to the command hash table. The keys are
the names of external commands, the values are the pathnames of
the files that would be executed when the command would be in‐
voked. Setting a key in this array defines a new entry in this
table in the same way as with the hash builtin. Unsetting a key
as in `unset "commands[foo]"' removes the entry for the given
key from the command hash table.
Although it is a loadable module, it seems to be loaded by default, as long as zsh is not used with --emulate.
example:
martin#martin ~ % echo $commands[zsh]
/usr/bin/zsh
To quickly check whether a certain command is available, just check if the key exists in the hash:
if (( ${+commands[zsh]} ))
then
echo "zsh is available"
fi
Note though that the hash will contain any files in $PATH folders, regardless of whether they are executable or not. To be absolutely sure, you have to spend a stat call on that:
if (( ${+commands[zsh]} )) && [[ -x $commands[zsh] ]]
then
echo "zsh is available"
fi
The which command might be useful. man which
It returns 0 if the executable is found and returns 1 if it's not found or not executable:
NAME
which - locate a command
SYNOPSIS
which [-a] filename ...
DESCRIPTION
which returns the pathnames of the files which would
be executed in the current environment, had its
arguments been given as commands in a strictly
POSIX-conformant shell. It does this by searching
the PATH for executable files matching the names
of the arguments.
OPTIONS
-a print all matching pathnames of each argument
EXIT STATUS
0 if all specified commands are
found and executable
1 if one or more specified commands is nonexistent
or not executable
2 if an invalid option is specified
The nice thing about which is that it figures out if the executable is available in the environment that which is run in - it saves a few problems...
Use Bash builtins if you can:
which programname
...
type -P programname
For those interested, none of the methodologies in previous answers work if you wish to detect an installed library. I imagine you are left either with physically checking the path (potentially for header files and such), or something like this (if you are on a Debian-based distribution):
dpkg --status libdb-dev | grep -q not-installed
if [ $? -eq 0 ]; then
apt-get install libdb-dev
fi
As you can see from the above, a "0" answer from the query means the package is not installed. This is a function of "grep" - a "0" means a match was found, a "1" means no match was found.
This will tell according to the location if the program exist or not:
if [ -x /usr/bin/yum ]; then
echo "This is Centos"
fi
I'd say there isn't any portable and 100% reliable way due to dangling aliases. For example:
alias john='ls --color'
alias paul='george -F'
alias george='ls -h'
alias ringo=/
Of course, only the last one is problematic (no offence to Ringo!). But all of them are valid aliases from the point of view of command -v.
In order to reject dangling ones like ringo, we have to parse the output of the shell built-in alias command and recurse into them (command -v isn't a superior to alias here.) There isn't any portable solution for it, and even a Bash-specific solution is rather tedious.
Note that a solution like this will unconditionally reject alias ls='ls -F':
test() { command -v $1 | grep -qv alias }
If you guys/gals can't get the things in answers here to work and are pulling hair out of your back, try to run the same command using bash -c. Just look at this somnambular delirium. This is what really happening when you run $(sub-command):
First. It can give you completely different output.
$ command -v ls
alias ls='ls --color=auto'
$ bash -c "command -v ls"
/bin/ls
Second. It can give you no output at all.
$ command -v nvm
nvm
$ bash -c "command -v nvm"
$ bash -c "nvm --help"
bash: nvm: command not found
#!/bin/bash
a=${apt-cache show program}
if [[ $a == 0 ]]
then
echo "the program doesn't exist"
else
echo "the program exists"
fi
#program is not literal, you can change it to the program's name you want to check
The hash-variant has one pitfall: On the command line you can for example type in
one_folder/process
to have process executed. For this the parent folder of one_folder must be in $PATH. But when you try to hash this command, it will always succeed:
hash one_folder/process; echo $? # will always output '0'
I second the use of "command -v". E.g. like this:
md=$(command -v mkdirhier) ; alias md=${md:=mkdir} # bash
emacs="$(command -v emacs) -nw" || emacs=nano
alias e=$emacs
[[ -z $(command -v jed) ]] && alias jed=$emacs
I had to check if Git was installed as part of deploying our CI server. My final Bash script was as follows (Ubuntu server):
if ! builtin type -p git &>/dev/null; then
sudo apt-get -y install git-core
fi
To mimic Bash's type -P cmd, we can use the POSIX compliant env -i type cmd 1>/dev/null 2>&1.
man env
# "The option '-i' causes env to completely ignore the environment it inherits."
# In other words, there are no aliases or functions to be looked up by the type command.
ls() { echo 'Hello, world!'; }
ls
type ls
env -i type ls
cmd=ls
cmd=lsx
env -i type $cmd 1>/dev/null 2>&1 || { echo "$cmd not found"; exit 1; }
If there isn't any external type command available (as taken for granted here), we can use POSIX compliant env -i sh -c 'type cmd 1>/dev/null 2>&1':
# Portable version of Bash's type -P cmd (without output on stdout)
typep() {
command -p env -i PATH="$PATH" sh -c '
export LC_ALL=C LANG=C
cmd="$1"
cmd="`type "$cmd" 2>/dev/null || { echo "error: command $cmd not found; exiting ..." 1>&2; exit 1; }`"
[ $? != 0 ] && exit 1
case "$cmd" in
*\ /*) exit 0;;
*) printf "%s\n" "error: $cmd" 1>&2; exit 1;;
esac
' _ "$1" || exit 1
}
# Get your standard $PATH value
#PATH="$(command -p getconf PATH)"
typep ls
typep builtin
typep ls-temp
At least on Mac OS X v10.6.8 (Snow Leopard) using Bash 4.2.24(2) command -v ls does not match a moved /bin/ls-temp.
My setup for a Debian server:
I had the problem when multiple packages contained the same name.
For example apache2. So this was my solution:
function _apt_install() {
apt-get install -y $1 > /dev/null
}
function _apt_install_norecommends() {
apt-get install -y --no-install-recommends $1 > /dev/null
}
function _apt_available() {
if [ `apt-cache search $1 | grep -o "$1" | uniq | wc -l` = "1" ]; then
echo "Package is available : $1"
PACKAGE_INSTALL="1"
else
echo "Package $1 is NOT available for install"
echo "We can not continue without this package..."
echo "Exitting now.."
exit 0
fi
}
function _package_install {
_apt_available $1
if [ "${PACKAGE_INSTALL}" = "1" ]; then
if [ "$(dpkg-query -l $1 | tail -n1 | cut -c1-2)" = "ii" ]; then
echo "package is already_installed: $1"
else
echo "installing package : $1, please wait.."
_apt_install $1
sleep 0.5
fi
fi
}
function _package_install_no_recommends {
_apt_available $1
if [ "${PACKAGE_INSTALL}" = "1" ]; then
if [ "$(dpkg-query -l $1 | tail -n1 | cut -c1-2)" = "ii" ]; then
echo "package is already_installed: $1"
else
echo "installing package : $1, please wait.."
_apt_install_norecommends $1
sleep 0.5
fi
fi
}
I have a bash script that creates a Subversion patch file for the current directory. I want to modify it to zip the produced file, if -z is given as an argument to the script.
Here's the relevant part:
zipped=''
zipcommand='>'
if [ "$1" = "-z" ]
then
zipped='zipped '
filename="${filename}.zip"
zipcommand='| zip >'
fi
echo "Creating ${zipped}patch file $filename..."
svn diff $zipcommand $filename
This doesn't work because it passes the | or > contained in $zipcommand as an argument to svn.
I can easily work around this, but the question is whether it's ever possible to use these kinds of operators when they're contained in variables.
Thanks!
I would do something like this (use bash -c or eval):
zipped=''
zipcommand='>'
if [ "$1" = "-z" ]
then
zipped='zipped '
filename="${filename}.zip"
zipcommand='| zip -#'
fi
echo "Creating ${zipped}patch file $filename..."
eval "svn diff $zipcommand $filename"
# this also works:
# bash -c "svn diff $zipcommand $filename"
This appears to work, but my version of zip (Mac OS X) required that i change the line:
zipcommand='| zip -#'
to
zipcommand='| zip - - >'
Edit: incorporated #DanielBungert's suggestion to use eval
eval is what you are looking for.
# eval 'printf "foo\nbar" | grep bar'
bar
Be careful with quote characters on that.
Or you should try zsh shell whic allows to define global aliases, e.g.:
alias -g L='| less'
alias -g S='| sort'
alias -g U='| uniq -c'
Then use this command (which is somewhat cryptic for the ones who took a look from behind ;-) )
./somecommand.sh S U L
HTH
Open a new file handle on either a process substitution to handle the compression or on the named file. Then redirect the output of svn diff to that file handle.
if [ "$1" = "-z" ]; then
zipped='zipped '
filename=$filename.zip
exec 3> >(zip > "$filename")
else
exec 3> "$filename"
fi
echo "Creating ${zipped}patch file $filename"
svn diff >&3