Pitfalls of shell scripting. Part1
In this post ( and in the next few posts) I'll try to cover some pitfalls where beginners to shell scripting might find themselves wasting hours looking through the code to find the error.
Variable assignment
- No space can occur between the variable name, the equal to sign, and the value.
eg, var1=10 (correct) var1 = 10 (incorrect)
Output redirection
- '>' operator writes the output to the file name mentioned.
eg., `date` > date.txt- '>>' appends to the file. Normal '>' overwrites the previous contents.
eg., `date` >> date.txt
Input redirection
- '<' reads from a file mentioned
eg., sort < data- '<<' is a powerful operator that allows inline input redirection. Instead of specifying a file to read from, with this operator one can specify the inputs in the code itself. The format is that after the << symbol, one can place a marker and continue giving data, ending it with the same marker.
eg., sort << datalist data1 data2 data3 data4 ... datan datalist
The last datalist signifies that our data has ended with this marker.
Mathematical expressions
- Legacy style is to use the expr command to evaluate mathematical expressions.
eg., var3=`expr $var1 + $var2`- Note that we need to use the backtick operator(`) for the shell to identify as a command, since the expr is a command and its output is assigned to the variable var3. But it becomes tedious and too much typing as the expressions get big and ugly.
- So the [ ] can be used to avoid all of this. The same thing can be easily written as
var3=$[$var1 + $var2]- The part inside the braces can be as complex as needed with "()" used to mark off sub-expressions and so on.
LIMITATION
- The problem with bash shell is that it only supports integer arithmetic. Therefore
var1=$[100 / 45] will store 2 as the result.
To overcome this we use the inbuilt bc(bash calculator) tool as it can handle all types of operators.
Level1 change
var1=`echo " 100 / 5" | bc` echo $var1- This is a rather convoluted way of giving the inputs to bc but the first way that one can think of.
- bc is a tool that needs inputs, so we echo all of our required expression and pipe it to the bc command.
- We need to include the whole line in the backtick(`) for the shell to interpret it as a command.
- The cool part is that bc can handle variables as well and supports all complex mathematical operations required in real-life applications.
Level2 change
Instead of doing all this, there is also a simple way of doing this. And welcome "<<" operator discussed above.
var1=100 var2=45 var3=`bc << end_of_data a = ( $var1 + $var2 ) b = (a*2) end_of_data ` echo the output is $var3
Note a few points in this example.
- bc can handle variables declared in the main code block
- there is no limitation for assigning values to variables
- there is no limitation in values placed inside the brackets. (Something you'll see later on, exists in the normal bash shell scripts)
Exit status.
UNIX provides a special variable "$?" denoting the exit status from the last command run. But one must use it immediately after the command for which the exit status is to be inspected.
eg.,
$ echo hello $ $? (Gives the status of echo) $ touch file1 $ ls file1 $ $?(Gives the status of ls, not touch.)
Generally in the UNIX world, some special codes have universal meaning across all commands.
| Code | Meaning |
|---|---|
| 0 | Successful completion of the command |
| 1 | General unknown error |
| 2 | Misuse of shell command |
| 126 | The command can't execute |
| 127 | Command not found |
| 128 | Invalid exit argument |
| 130 | Command terminated with Ctrl-C |
| 255 | Exit status out of range |
One should use this in designing a script. And it is also handy to determine how a command exited and resume/cancel further operation based on the value.
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