I am trying to accept user input of yes or no to a question and depending on the answer read back the value of my variable. I can never get commands attached to variables to work or my if statements to accept yes or no. It just keeps going to "not a valid answer".
Please let me know how to actually get those to work in bash script. I keep lookingup different things to try and nothing seems to work.
Here is what I have now:
yesdebug='echo "Will run in debug mode"'
nodebug='echo "Will not run in debug mode"'
echo "Would you like to run script in debug mode? (yes or no)"
read yesorno
if [$yesorno == 'yes']; then
$yesdebug
elif [$yesorno == 'no']; then
$nodebug
else
echo "Not a valid answer."
exit 1
fi
There are several problems with your code:
Failure to put spaces around [ (which is a command name) and ] (which is a mandatory but functionless argument to ]).
Treating the contents of a variable as a command; use functions instead.
yesdebug () { echo "Will run in debug mode"; }
nodebug () { echo "Will not run in debug mode"; }
echo "Would you like to run script in debug mode? (yes or no)"
read yesorno
if [ "$yesorno" = yes ]; then
yesdebug
elif [ "$yesorno" = no ]; then
nodebug
else
echo "Not a valid answer."
exit 1
fi
I'm executing a local script, which executes a second script via SSH:
RES=$(ssh user#destination 'bash -s 2>&1' < remoteScript.sh)
I need the second script (remoteScript.sh) to exit with code 1 when I detect an error, which is why I built a function which is executed after some delicate calculations:
ErrorCheck()
{
if [ ! "$?" = "0" ]
then
exit 1
fi
}
Unfortunately, the exit 1 is behaving as a return instruction, as the remoteScript.sh execution continues. According to my testing this is related to using sudo su - {user} at the beginning of the remote script.
What am I doing wrong here? How can I make that function, end the remoteScript.sh?
EDIT:
I'm adding a very limited example of my remote script. I've tried running it locally and it works. It just fails when running via SSH.
sudo su - {user}
DelicateFunction()
{
# The following instruction fails
thisisanerror123
ErrorCheck
}
ErrorCheck()
{
if [ ! "$?" = "0" ]
then
exit 1
fi
}
printf "Executing DelicateFunction\n"
DelicateFunction
printf "I should not print!"
The only way that won't exit is if it's running in a sub-shell.
exit is guaranteed to exit its shell.
Incidentally, you can write ErrorCheck a lot simpler:
ErrorCheck()
{
[ $? = 0 ] || exit 1
}
I have a function like this
function backup {
do_backup
printf "success"
do_more_backup
echo "success"
if ... ; then
echo 1
else
echo 0
fi
}
And I have a conditional statement like that
if [[ ! $(backup) ]]; then
...
I can't get the output from function into the shell, but it's evaluating all commands - I've checked in debug mode. I want to evaluate the function, so it does her purpose and in a meanwhile print out some log messages, then to check on exit code of this function if everything succeed. How to approach this problem in bash? And how to avoid printing out last echo, which is a status, or an exit code of a function for evaluation purposes in conditional statement.
please use return 1 return 0 not echo
I am trying to execute a script that executes an EXPECT script and a spawned process which has exit code in it. But I'm unable to get the exit code of the spawned process to main script. I'm always getting zero as success.
expect script is :
[Linux Dev:anr ]$ cat testexit.sh
#!/bin/bash
export tmp_script_file="/home/anr/tmp_script_temp.sh"
cp /home/anr/tmp_script $tmp_script_file
chmod a+x $tmp_script_file
cat $tmp_script_file
expect << 'EOF'
set timeout -1
spawn $env(tmp_script_file)
expect {
"INVALID " { exit 4 }
timeout { exit 4 }
}
EOF
echo "spawned process status" $?
rm -f $tmp_script_file
echo "done"
Spawned script:
[Linux Dev:anr ]$ cat tmp_script
exit 3
Execution of Expect script:
[Linux Dev:anr ]$ ./testexit.sh
exit 3
spawn /home/anr/tmp_script_temp.sh
spawned process status 0
done
Problem is I am unable to get the spawned exit return code to expect script. I want the exit code 3 of spawned script to main script and main script should be exit with exit code 3.
Please help me to get the spawned exit code to main script.
You get the exit status of the spawned process with the wait command:
expect <<'END'
log_user 0
spawn sh -c {echo hello; exit 42}
expect eof
puts $expect_out(buffer)
lassign [wait] pid spawnid os_error_flag value
if {$os_error_flag == 0} {
puts "exit status: $value"
} else {
puts "errno: $value"
}
END
hello
exit status: 42
From the expect man page
wait [args]
delays until a spawned process (or the current process if none is named) terminates.
wait normally returns a list of four integers. The first integer is the pid of the process that was waited upon. The second integer is the corresponding spawn id. The third integer is -1 if an operating system error occurred, or 0 otherwise. If the third integer was 0, the fourth integer is the status returned by the spawned process. If the third integer was -1, the fourth integer is the value of errno set by the operating system. The global variable errorCode is also set.
Change
expect {
"INVALID " { exit 4 }
timeout { exit 4 }
}
to
expect {
"INVALID " { exit 4 }
timeout { exit 4 }
eof
}
Then add the lassign and if commands.
With the help of glenn, I got solution.. and my final script is::
expect script is
[Linux Dev:anr ]$ cat testexit.sh
#!/bin/bash
export tmp_script_file="/home/anr/tmp_script_temp.sh"
cp /home/anr/tmp_script $tmp_script_file
chmod a+x $tmp_script_file
cat $tmp_script_file
expect << 'EOF'
set timeout -1
spawn $env(tmp_script_file)
expect {
"INVALID " { exit 4 }
timeout { exit 4 }
eof
}
foreach {pid spawnid os_error_flag value} [wait] break
if {$os_error_flag == 0} {
puts "exit status: $value"
exit $value
} else {
puts "errno: $value"
exit $value
}
EOF
echo "spawned process status" $?
rm -f $tmp_script_file
echo "done"
Spawned script:
[Linux Dev:anr ]$ cat tmp_script
exit 3
Execution of Expect script:
[Linux Dev:anr ]$ ./testexit.sh
exit 3
spawn /home/anr/tmp_script_temp.sh
exit status: 3
spawned process status 3
done
Thanks Glenn once again..
After struggling few days with expanding variable inside the expect heredoc, finally i came across an another approach i thought may be helpful to someone in need. My requirement was to pass command and password to a shell function, execute the command in remote host as part of expect heredoc and get the return exit code.
Example:
function shell_function {
# Get the command and password as arguments
# Run command using expect
# Return the exit code
}
shell_function <cmd> <password>
echo $?
Like everyone else expanding of variable inside the heredoc was a problem, which required exporting the value into an environment variable and use env to get the variable inside heredoc. Since, password was one of the arguments i didn't want to store it as part of an environment variable. So, instead of enclosing heredoc opening with single quotes, the variables of heredoc have been escaped. This allowed the direct usage of arguments passed.
Following is the final script:
#! /bin/bash
# This function runs a command like 'ssh' and provides the password
function run_with_password {
cmd="$2"
paswd="$1"
expect << END
set timeout 60
spawn $cmd
expect {
"yes/no" { send "yes\r" }
"*assword*" { send -- $paswd\r }
}
expect EOF
catch wait result
exit [lindex \$result 3]
END
}
my_password="AnswerIS42Really?"
cmd_to_run="ssh userid#hostname"
cmd_to_run="$cmd_to_run ls .sawfish"
run_with_password $my_password "$cmd_to_run"
echo "Command run code: $?"
In the above code the escaped expect variable is $result. After changing the variable to \$result, the script started working like charm.
My sincere thanks to users who have provided answers to following questions, which served as a stepping stones to reach my solution.
Douglas Leeder: help with expect script, run cat on remote comp and get output of it to the variable
glenn jackman: How to return spawned process exit code in Expect script?
Is there a "goto" statement in bash ? I know It is considered bad practice, but I need specifically "goto".
If you are using it to skip part of a large script for debugging (see Karl Nicoll's comment), then if false could be a good option (not sure if "false" is always available, for me it is in /bin/false):
# ... Code I want to run here ...
if false; then
# ... Code I want to skip here ...
fi
# ... I want to resume here ...
The difficulty comes in when it's time to rip out your debugging code. The "if false" construct is pretty straightforward and memorable, but how do you find the matching fi? If your editor allows you to block indent, you could indent the skipped block (then you'll want to put it back when you're done). Or a comment on the fi line, but it would have to be something you'll remember, which I suspect will be very programmer-dependent.
No, there is not; see ยง3.2.4 "Compound Commands" in the Bash Reference Manual for information about the control structures that do exist. In particular, note the mention of break and continue, which aren't as flexible as goto, but are more flexible in Bash than in some languages, and may help you achieve what you want. (Whatever it is that you want . . .)
It indeed may be useful for some debug or demonstration needs.
I found that Bob Copeland solution http://bobcopeland.com/blog/2012/10/goto-in-bash/ elegant:
#!/bin/bash
# include this boilerplate
function jumpto
{
label=$1
cmd=$(sed -n "/$label:/{:a;n;p;ba};" $0 | grep -v ':$')
eval "$cmd"
exit
}
start=${1:-"start"}
jumpto $start
start:
# your script goes here...
x=100
jumpto foo
mid:
x=101
echo "This is not printed!"
foo:
x=${x:-10}
echo x is $x
results in:
$ ./test.sh
x is 100
$ ./test.sh foo
x is 10
$ ./test.sh mid
This is not printed!
x is 101
You can use case in bash to simulate a goto:
#!/bin/bash
case bar in
foo)
echo foo
;&
bar)
echo bar
;&
*)
echo star
;;
esac
produces:
bar
star
If you're testing/debugging a bash script, and simply want to skip forwards past one or more sections of code, here is a very simple way to do it that is also very easy to find and remove later (unlike most of the methods described above).
#!/bin/bash
echo "Run this"
cat >/dev/null <<GOTO_1
echo "Don't run this"
GOTO_1
echo "Also run this"
cat >/dev/null <<GOTO_2
echo "Don't run this either"
GOTO_2
echo "Yet more code I want to run"
To put your script back to normal, just delete any lines with GOTO.
We can also prettify this solution, by adding a goto command as an alias:
#!/bin/bash
shopt -s expand_aliases
alias goto="cat >/dev/null <<"
goto GOTO_1
echo "Don't run this"
GOTO_1
echo "Run this"
goto GOTO_2
echo "Don't run this either"
GOTO_2
echo "All done"
Aliases don't usually work in bash scripts, so we need the shopt command to fix that.
If you want to be able to enable/disable your goto's, we need a little bit more:
#!/bin/bash
shopt -s expand_aliases
if [ -n "$DEBUG" ] ; then
alias goto="cat >/dev/null <<"
else
alias goto=":"
fi
goto '#GOTO_1'
echo "Don't run this"
#GOTO1
echo "Run this"
goto '#GOTO_2'
echo "Don't run this either"
#GOTO_2
echo "All done"
Then you can do export DEBUG=TRUE before running the script.
The labels are comments, so won't cause syntax errors if disable our goto's (by setting goto to the ':' no-op), but this means we need to quote them in our goto statements.
Whenever using any kind of goto solution, you need to be careful that the code you're jumping past doesn't set any variables that you rely on later - you may need to move those definitions to the top of your script, or just above one of your goto statements.
Although others have already clarified that there is no direct goto equivalent in bash (and provided the closest alternatives such as functions, loops, and break), I would like to illustrate how using a loop plus break can simulate a specific type of goto statement.
The situation where I find this the most useful is when I need to return to the beginning of a section of code if certain conditions are not met. In the example below, the while loop will run forever until ping stops dropping packets to a test IP.
#!/bin/bash
TestIP="8.8.8.8"
# Loop forever (until break is issued)
while true; do
# Do a simple test for Internet connectivity
PacketLoss=$(ping "$TestIP" -c 2 | grep -Eo "[0-9]+% packet loss" | grep -Eo "^[0-9]")
# Exit the loop if ping is no longer dropping packets
if [ "$PacketLoss" == 0 ]; then
echo "Connection restored"
break
else
echo "No connectivity"
fi
done
This solution had the following issues:
Indiscriminately removes all code lines ending in a :
Treats label: anywhere on a line as a label
Here's a fixed (shell-check clean and POSIX compatible) version:
#!/bin/sh
# GOTO for bash, based upon https://stackoverflow.com/a/31269848/5353461
goto() {
label=$1
cmd=$(sed -En "/^[[:space:]]*#[[:space:]]*$label:[[:space:]]*#/{:a;n;p;ba};" "$0")
eval "$cmd"
exit
}
start=${1:-start}
goto "$start" # GOTO start: by default
#start:# Comments can occur after labels
echo start
goto end
# skip: # Whitespace is allowed
echo this is usually skipped
# end: #
echo end
There is one more ability to achieve a desired results: command trap. It can be used to clean-up purposes for example.
There is no goto in bash.
Here is some dirty workaround using trap which jumps only backwards:)
#!/bin/bash -e
trap '
echo I am
sleep 1
echo here now.
' EXIT
echo foo
goto trap 2> /dev/null
echo bar
Output:
$ ./test.sh
foo
I am
here now.
This shouldn't be used in that way, but only for educational purposes. Here is why this works:
trap is using exception handling to achieve the change in code flow.
In this case the trap is catching anything that causes the script to EXIT. The command goto doesn't exist, and hence throws an error, which would ordinarily exit the script. This error is being caught with trap, and the 2>/dev/null hides the error message that would ordinarily be displayed.
This implementation of goto is obviously not reliable, since any non-existent command (or any other error, for that manner), would execute the same trap command. In particular, you cannot choose which label to go-to.
Basically in real scenario you don't need any goto statements, they're redundant as random calls to different places only make your code difficult to understand.
If your code is invoked many times, then consider to use loop and changing its workflow to use continue and break.
If your code repeats it-self, consider writing the function and calling it as many times as you want.
If your code needs to jump into specific section based on the variable value, then consider using case statement.
If you can separate your long code into smaller pieces, consider moving it into separate files and call them from the parent script.
I found out a way to do this using functions.
Say, for example, you have 3 choices: A, B, and C. A and Bexecute a command, but C gives you more info and takes you to the original prompt again. This can be done using functions.
Note that since the line containg function demoFunction is just setting up the function, you need to call demoFunction after that script so the function will actually run.
You can easily adapt this by writing multiple other functions and calling them if you need to "GOTO" another place in your shell script.
function demoFunction {
read -n1 -p "Pick a letter to run a command [A, B, or C for more info] " runCommand
case $runCommand in
a|A) printf "\n\tpwd being executed...\n" && pwd;;
b|B) printf "\n\tls being executed...\n" && ls;;
c|C) printf "\n\toption A runs pwd, option B runs ls\n" && demoFunction;;
esac
}
demoFunction
This is a small correction of the Judy Schmidt script put up by Hubbbitus.
Putting non-escaped labels in the script was problematic on the machine and caused it to crash. This was easy enough to resolve by adding # to escape the labels. Thanks to Alexej Magura and access_granted for their suggestions.
#!/bin/bash
# include this boilerplate
function goto {
label=$1
cmd=$(sed -n "/$#label#:/{:a;n;p;ba};" $0 | grep -v ':$')
eval "$cmd"
exit
}
start=${1:-"start"}
goto $start
#start#
echo "start"
goto bing
#boom#
echo boom
goto eof
#bang#
echo bang
goto boom
#bing#
echo bing
goto bang
#eof#
echo "the end mother-hugger..."
A simple searchable goto for the use of commenting out code blocks when debugging.
GOTO=false
if ${GOTO}; then
echo "GOTO failed"
...
fi # End of GOTO
echo "GOTO done"
Result is-> GOTO done
My idea for creating something like "goto" is to use select with case and assign a variable, which I then check in an if statement. Not perfect, but may help in some cases
Example:
#!/usr/bin/env bash
select goto in Ubuntu Debian Quit ; do
case $goto in
Ubuntu) { CHOICE="Ubuntu" ; break ; } ;;
Debian) { CHOICE="Debian" ; break ; } ;;
Quit) { echo "Bye" ; exit ; } ;;
*) { echo "Invalid selection, please try again..." ; } ;;
esac
done
if [ "$CHOICE" == "Ubuntu" ]; then
echo "I'm in Ubuntu"
fi
if [ "$CHOICE" == "Debian" ]; then
echo "I'm in Debian"
fi
Why don't anyone just use functions directly ?
BTW functions are easier to deal with than making a new thing
My style :
#!/bin/bash
# Your functions
function1 ()
{
commands
}
function2 ()
{
commands
}
:
:
functionn ()
{
commands
}
# Execute 1 to n in order
for i in {1..n}
do
function$i
done
# with conditions
for i in {1..n}
do
[ condition$i ] && function$i
done
# Random order
function1
functionn
function5
:
:
function3
Example for above style :
#!/bin/bash
# Your functions
function1 ()
{
echo "Task 1"
}
function2 ()
{
echo "Task 2"
}
function3 ()
{
echo "Task 3"
}
function1
function3
function2
Output :
Task 1
Task 3
Task 2
Drawbacks :
Script in an organized way.
Less problems and not prone to errors.
You can make function inside a existing function.
Move back and forth without any problems.