I am learning bash.
I would like to do a simple script that, when not arguments given, shows some message. And when I give numers as argument,s depending on the value, it does one thing or another.
I would also like to know suggestions for the best online manuals for beginners in bash
Thanks
if [[ $# -eq 0 ]] ; then
echo 'some message'
exit 0
fi
case "$1" in
1) echo 'you gave 1' ;;
*) echo 'you gave something else' ;;
esac
The Advanced Bash-Scripting Guide is pretty good. In spite of its name, it does treat the basics.
If only interested in bailing if a particular argument is missing, Parameter Substitution is great:
#!/bin/bash
# usage-message.sh
: ${1?"Usage: $0 ARGUMENT"}
# Script exits here if command-line parameter absent,
#+ with following error message.
# usage-message.sh: 1: Usage: usage-message.sh ARGUMENT
Example
if [ -z "$*" ]; then echo "No args"; fi
Result
No args
Details
-z is the unary operator for length of string is zero.
$* is all arguments.
The quotes are for safety and encapsulating multiple arguments if present.
Use man bash and search (/ key) for "unary" for more operators like this.
Old but I have reason to rework the answer now thanks to some previous confusion:
if [[ $1 == "" ]] #Where "$1" is the positional argument you want to validate
then
echo "something"
exit 0
fi
This will echo "Something" if there is no positional argument $1. It does not validate that $1 contains specific information however.
If there is not only 1 argument, then print usage and exit
if [[ $# != 1 ]] ; then
echo 'USAGE: bin/siege COOKIE'
exit 0
fi
Related
I'm a Bash newbie, and I'm puzzling through a Bash script where I see this:
while [ $# -ge 2 ]
if [ "x$1" = "x-a" ]; then
echo "STR_A = $2" >>tmpFile.txt
...do more stuff...
elif [ "x$1" = "x-b" ]; then
echo "STR_B = $2" >>tmpFile.txt
...do more stuff...
else
usage
done
The script takes in four (or five?) command line arguments, and that usage function is:
usage() {
echo "usage: myscript -a STR_A | -b STR_B" 1>&2
exit 1
}
So suppose I ran the script like this:
me#ubuntu1:~$./myscript -A apple -B banana
I'm guessing that this code processes the script's command line arguments. I think that the outer while() loop steps through the command line arguments after argument 1, which would be myscript. The inner if() statements check to see an -a or -b flag is used to supply arguments, and then records the text string that follows in tmpFile.txt. Anything outside of those parameters is rejected and the script exits.
A lot of these assumptions rest on the bet that the outer while() loop...
while [ $# -ge 2 ]
...means "parse the BASH argv[] after the first argument", (to put this in C terms.) If that's not a correct assumption, then I have no idea what's going on here. Any feedback is appreciated, thank you!
Some code explanation.
while [ $# -ge 2 ]
There is a missing do for the loop.
This should loop forever if there are two or more arguments, unless shift is used. If there are less than two arguments, the loop does not even start.
if [ "x$1" = "x-a" ]; then
In distant past, it was common to prevent empty strings by adding an extra letter. Nowadays you would if [ "$1" = "-a" ]; then.
else
usage
Note that the usage is called from within the loop. So, if I would call the script as myscript -a, I would not get a usage message. On the other hand, if I would myscript bla bla, I would get an endless stream of error messages, which is probably not what you want.
I would seriously edit the script; determine whether the while is indeed a loop-forever or whether it is used instead of an if, and try the getops for argument parsing.
This doesn't help understand the code you're reading, but I do option parsing like this:
# inititialize vars, not strictly required in this case
a=''
b=''
# process options
while getopts "ha:b:" opt; do
case $opt in
a) a=$OPTARG ;;
b) b=$OPTARG ;;
*) usage ;;
esac
done
# shift after the processing
shift $((OPTIND - 1))
# look for error conditions
if [[ -n $a && -n $b ]]; then
echo "only one of -a or -b should be given" >&2
exit 1
fi
getopts is a bash builtin
So I have a couple of getopts in my bash script. Here's an example of a working one.
FOUND=
SEARCH=
COUNT=0
while getopts "ips:flenkc" OPTION
do
case $OPTION in
i)
FOUND=1
let "COUNT++"
;;
p)
FOUND=2
let "COUNT++"
;;
s)
FOUND=3
SEARCH=$OPTARG
let "COUNT++"
;;
esac
done
Later on a case statement that checks to see if count=1 (meaning, only one of the following, i, p, and s, are used in the call) Not important except that it determines the main action being done.
Now the getopts thing in question. This was working before, and now it's not. The goal is to make it so that if someone wants to input data, they can do so with the following bash command.
./programname -i -f Mary -l Sue -e smary#email.com -n 555-555-5555
Where, when -i is used, we must have -f, -l, -e, and -n (for first name, last name, e-mail, and number).
The code I was using: Warning, code is full of syntax errors. If you're learning bash, I highly recommend you do not use anything you see here in my post.
if [ $FOUND == "1" ]
then
echo "You have chosen to insert things."
FIRST=
LAST=
EMAIL=
NUMBER=
while getopts "if:l:e:n:" OPTION
do
case $OPTION in
f)
FIRST=$OPTARG
;;
l)
LAST=$OPTARG
;;
e)
EMAIL=$OPTARG
;;
n)
NUMBER=$OPTARG
;;
esac
done
if [[ -z $FIRST ]] || [[ -z $LAST ]] || [[ -z $EMAIL ]] || [[ -z $NUMBER ]]
echo "Error!!! Some input is missing!!!"
usage // display usage
exit 1
fi
echo -e $FIRST"\t"$LAST"\t"$EMAIL"\t"$NUMBER >> contacts
fi
Before this program would work, but now, not even a single thing is making it to input for FIRST, LAST, EMAIL, and NUMBER (in my attempts to change the code to see if it was making it to certain steps).
What am I doing wrong with the getopts? It was working fine before, but now.... it's not working at all!
One thing worth noting up front: if your script has already called getopts once, another getopts call will start AFTER all options and therefore effectively do nothing; reset OPTIND to 1 before each subsequent getopts calls to have them reprocess all options.
Your code has both syntax errors and is worth cleaning up in general:
The if [[ -z ... statement was missing a then.
The // after usage would have caused a syntax error - POSIX-like shells use # as the comment char.
Since this is bash script, stick with using [[ ... ]] consistently (no need for [ ... ]) and/or use (( ... )) for arithmetic operations.
Specifically, avoid [ ... == ... ], because it mixes POSIX syntax - [ ... ] - with Bash-specific syntax - == ( POSIX only supports =).
If you do use [ ... ], be sure to double-quote variable references, to be safe.
No need for multiple [[ ... ]] expressions to OR them together - do it in a single [[ ... || ... || ... ]].
It's best to avoid all-uppercase shell-variable names so as to avoid conflicts with environment variables and special shell variables.
Output error messages to stderr, using >&2.
Enclose the entire argument to echo -e in double-quotes to protect variable values from possibly unwanted expansions.
Mere syntax errors can usually be caught using shellcheck.net.
Putting it all together, we get:
#!/usr/bin/env bash
# ... code that sets $found
# If you've already processed args. with getopts above,
# you must reset OPTIND to process them again.
OPTIND=1
if (( found == 1 )) # found is numeric, use arithmetic expression to compare
then
echo "You have chosen to insert things."
first= last= email= number= # don't use all-uppercase var. names
while getopts "if:l:e:n:" option
do
case $option in
f)
first=$OPTARG
;;
l)
last=$OPTARG
;;
e)
email=$OPTARG
;;
n)
number=$OPTARG
;;
esac
done
if [[ -z $first || -z $last || -z $email || -z $number ]]; then
echo "Error!!! Some input is missing!!!" >&2
usage # display usage
exit 1
fi
echo -e "$first\t$last\t$email\t$number" >> contacts
fi
I'm working with shell scripting in Linux. I want to check if the value of MAX_ARCHIVE_AGE is numeric or not. My code is like this:
MAX_ARCHIVE_AGE = "50"
expr="*[0-9]*"
if test -z "$MAX_ARCHIVE_AGE";
then
echo "MAX_ARCHIVE_AGE variable is missing or not initiated"
else
if [ "$MAX_ARCHIVE_AGE" != $expr ]
then
echo "$MAX_ARCHIVE_AGE is not a valid value"
fi
fi
I want to match the value of MAX_ARCHIVE_AGE with my expr. Please help.
For POSIX compatibility, look at case. I also find it more elegant than the corresponding if construct, but the syntax may seem a bit odd when you first see it.
case $MAX_ARCHIVE_AGE in
'' ) echo "empty" >&2 ;;
*[!0-9]* ) echo "not a number" >&2 ;;
esac
By the way, notice the redirection of error messages to standard error with >&2.
Your expr will match anything that contains any digits; it's better to check if it contains only digits, or conversely, to check if it contains any non-digits. To do that, you can write:
if ! [[ "$MAX_ARCHIVE_AGE" ]] ; then
echo "MAX_ARCHIVE_AGE is blank or uninitialized" >&2
elif [[ "$MAX_ARCHIVE_AGE" == *[^0-9]* ]] ; then
echo "$MAX_ARCHIVE_AGE is not a valid value" >&2
fi
Also, note that you would initialize MAX_ARCHIVE_AGE by writing e.g. MAX_ARCHIVE_AGE=50 (no spaces), not MAX_ARCHIVE_AGE = 50. The latter tries to run a program called MAX_ARCHIVE_AGE with the arguments = and 50.
I am writing a shell program that takes in three arguments:
an integer to determine the function of the program
a file used by the program
The command is of the form myProgram num file. However, I want the program to output an error if the command only has 0, 1, or more than 2 arguments. That is, if I type "myProgram", "myProgram num", or "myProgram num file anotherWord", an error will be printed to the screen. Does anyone know how I could implement this into my existing code?
In bash, when using integers, the (( )) is more intuitive :
#!/bin/bash
if (($# < 2)); then
printf >&2 "There's less than 2 arguments\n"
exit 1
fi
if (($# > 2)); then
printf >&2 "There's more than 2 arguments\n"
exit 1
fi
if ! (($1)); then
printf >&2 "First argument must be a positive integer\n"
exit 1
fi
if [[ ! -f "$2" ]]; then
printf >&2 "Second argument must be an exited file\n"
exit 1
fi
# -->the rest of the script here<--
Moreover, to respect the best practice & proper coding, when printing an error, it must be so STDERR like I do with printf >&2
The built-in variable $# contains the number of arguments that were passed to the script. You use this to check if there are enough arguments like so:
#!/bin/bash
if [ $# -ne 2 ]; then
echo "Usage: myProgram num file" >&2
exit 1
fi
# The rest of your script.
Use shell built in $# to determine the number of arguments passed into your script. Your program name is not counted.
if you are using bash, then you can approach it like this:
#!/bin/bash
if [ $# -lt 2 ] || [ $# -gt 3 ]
then
echo "You did not provide the correct parameters"
echo "Usage: blah blah blah"
fi
This is a very simple check. You can also check man pages for getopt processing which is much more powerful when evaluating command line parameters.
be well
In the middle of a script, I want to check if a given flag was passed on the command line. The following does what I want but seems ugly:
if echo $* | grep -e "--flag" -q
then
echo ">>>> Running with flag"
else
echo ">>>> Running without flag"
fi
Is there a better way?
Note: I explicitly don't want to list all the flags in a switch/getopt. (In this case any such things would become half or more of the full script. Also the bodies of the if just set a set of vars)
An alternative to what you're doing:
if [[ $* == *--flag* ]]
See also BashFAQ/035.
Note: This will also match --flags-off since it's a simple substring check.
I typically see this done with a case statement. Here's an excerpt from the git-repack script:
while test $# != 0
do
case "$1" in
-n) no_update_info=t ;;
-a) all_into_one=t ;;
-A) all_into_one=t
unpack_unreachable=--unpack-unreachable ;;
-d) remove_redundant=t ;;
-q) GIT_QUIET=t ;;
-f) no_reuse=--no-reuse-object ;;
-l) local=--local ;;
--max-pack-size|--window|--window-memory|--depth)
extra="$extra $1=$2"; shift ;;
--) shift; break;;
*) usage ;;
esac
shift
done
Note that this allows you to check for both short and long flags. Other options are built up using the extra variable in this case.
you can take the straight-forward approach, and iterate over the arguments to test each of them for equality with a given parameter (e.g. -t, --therizinosaurus).
put it into a function:
has_param() {
local term="$1"
shift
for arg; do
if [[ $arg == "$term" ]]; then
return 0
fi
done
return 1
}
… and use it as a predicate in test expressions:
if has_param '-t' "$#"; then
echo "yay!"
fi
if ! has_param '-t' "$1" "$2" "$wat"; then
echo "nay..."
fi
if you want to reject empty arguments, add an exit point at the top of the loop body:
for arg; do
if [[ -z "$arg" ]]; then
return 2
fi
# ...
this is very readable, and will not give you false positives, like pattern matching or regex matching will.
it will also allow placing flags at arbitrary positions, for example, you can put -h at the end of the command line (not going into whether it's good or bad).
but, the more i thought about it, the more something bothered me.
with a function, you can take any implementation (e.g. getopts), and reuse it. encapsulation rulez!
but even with commands, this strength can become a flaw. if you'll be using it again and again, you'll be parsing all the arguments each time.
my tendency is to favor reuse, but i have to be aware of the implications. the opposed approach would be to parse these arguments once at the script top, as you dreaded, and avoid the repeated parsing.
you can still encapsulate that switch case, which can be as big as you decide (you don't have to list all the options).
You can use the getopt keyword in bash.
From http://aplawrence.com/Unix/getopts.html:
getopt
This is a standalone executable that has been around a long time.
Older versions lack the ability to handle quoted arguments (foo a "this
won't work" c) and the versions that can, do so clumsily. If you are
running a recent Linux version, your "getopt" can do that; SCO OSR5,
Mac OS X 10.2.6 and FreeBSD 4.4 has an older version that does not.
The simple use of "getopt" is shown in this mini-script:
#!/bin/bash
echo "Before getopt"
for i
do
echo $i
done
args=`getopt abc:d $*`
set -- $args
echo "After getopt"
for i
do
echo "-->$i"
done
I've made small changes to the answer of Eliran Malka:
This function can evaluate different parameter synonyms, like "-q" and "--quick". Also, it does not use return 0/1 but an echo to return a non-null value when the parameter is found:
function has_param() {
local terms="$1"
shift
for term in $terms; do
for arg; do
if [[ $arg == "$term" ]]; then
echo "yes"
fi
done
done
}
# Same usage:
# Assign result to a variable.
FLAG_QUICK=$(has_param "-q --quick" "$#") # "yes" or ""
# Test in a condition using the nonzero-length-test to detect "yes" response.
if [[ -n $(has_param "-h --help" "$#") ]]; then;
echo "Need help?"
fi
# Check, is a flag is NOT set by using the zero-length test.
if [[ -z $(has_param "-f --flag" "$#") ]]; then
echo "FLAG NOT SET"
fi
The modification of Dennis Williamson's answer with additional example for a argument in the short form.
if [[ \ $*\ == *\ --flag\ * ]] || [[ \ $*\ == *\ -f\ * ]]
It solves the problem of false positive matching --flags-off and even --another--flag (more popular such case for an one-dashed arguments: --one-more-flag for *-f*).
\ (backslash + space) means space for expressions inside [[ ]]. Putting spaces around $* allows to be sure that the arguments contacts neither line's start nor line's end, they contacts only spaces. And now the target flag surrounded by spaces can be searched in the line with arguments.
if [ "$1" == "-n" ]; then
echo "Flag set";
fi
Here is a variation on the most voted answer that won't pick up false positives
if [[ " $* " == *" -r "* ]]; then
Not an alternative, but an improvement, though.
if echo $* | grep -e "\b--flag\b" -q
Looking for word boundaries will make sure to really get the option --flag and neither --flagstaff nor --not-really--flag