I'm reading Wicked Cool Shell Scripts. For some reason, the function pasted in below gives the error: ./inpath2: line 10: [: too many arguments. What am I missing?
Last edited by Scott; 10-10-2017 at 08:41 AM..
Reason: Replaced ICODE with CODE tags
Are there spaces in any of the $directory ($ourpath) or arguments to the script ($cmd)?
It's always a good idea to double-quote variables, including when they're passed to the function. for works on words, so if there are spaces around it will iterate once for each word in the string.
There's not supposed to be spaces. The script is meant to find and determine if a file is executable based on the user's path. The idea is that it can deal with "ls" or "/bin/ls."
The first thing I would usually do here is echo the variables before the test (before the if), and do some sanitation on them. I would also declare each variable on its own line, and quote them when using them.
I'm reading Wicked Cool Shell Scripts. For some reason, the function pasted in below gives the error: ./inpath2: line 10: [: too many arguments. What am I missing?
To be honest i don't see how this is supposed to be "cool". "Wicked" yes, but cool?
I'd write it this way and you will understand why once you have scripts several thousand lines long to maintain. If this is meant for bash instead of ksh replace "typeset" with "local":
A few things to notice:
Variables can change their content easily in shell scripts. Strings can become numbers and vice versa. To maintain a modicum of runtime security i always use qualifiers (see "Hungarian Style Notation") to denote the "type" of a variable. This helps me to keep track in complicated and long scripts. I use:
f... = "file", a filename, directory or generally a path
i... = "int", an integer number
ch.. = "char", a string
l... = "logical", basically an int, but i use only values 0 and 1
It doesn't matter what system you use as long as you stay consistently with it. You do not need to adopt my system, but you should have some system, otherwise you will create a mess over time.
Second: i have declared all my variables i use in the function. This not only encapsulates the function (there is no danger with side effects) but i can also document what i use the variables for and what they should contain. If something goes wrong i can display what is in the variables and compare that with the the mini-data-dictionary at the top of the function.
Third: when the test for an executable is positive there is no point in testing the rest of the path. Therefore i leave the loop immediately via the return-statement in this case.
Fourth: using the while-loop i can specify a custom IFS for the single read-command, so i do not need to save and restore the IFS.
Fifth: all the strings are protected by double-quotes always. This increases run-time security because this way i never have to worry about strings containing white space.
And finally: you notice the line $chFullDebug. This variable is nowhere defined or used in the function. It is a global which i set in my scripts. Under normal conditions the variable is an empty string and the line does nothing. If i need to fully debug a script i set this to set -xv because setting these shell options in the main program would have them switched off with every entering of a subfunction. This way, by writing it into every function i can globally switch debugging on or off.
The first thing I would usually do here is echo the variables before the test (before the if), and do some sanitation on them. I would also declare each variable on its own line, and quote them when using them.
Thanks for the quick replies. I'm at work now, but I will try this when I get home. Thanks again.
Wrong quoting.
The for loop actually needs to split on IFS that is set to : so $ourpath must not be in quotes.
The arguments in the following [ ] test should be quoted in general.
Not quoting the $ourpath bares a risk with special characters.
However, a IFS=: read line has the problem that the full line is read into line; splitting would take place with FS=: read field1 field2 but then you must know the number of fields, so you would need to split into an array, but arrays are a bit specific to bash or ksh...
I have a script that uses 2 arguments. I want to call the function part within this script using these same arguments. Below is what I came up with below script so far, any guidance would be helpful. Thank you!
cat backup.sh
#!/bin/bash
function usage {
echo "USAGE: $(basename $0)... (6 Replies)
Hey guys,
I'm fairly new to bash scripting, so bear with me :)
What I want to achieve is reading a file (.php), find the phrase 'WACHTWOORD' (password) in it, and collect the password and a part of the filename in a list.
The filename is always 'settings_{name}.php' and the part I'm looking... (6 Replies)
Hello Everyone,
Is there a way i can pass the arguments as parameters or variables instead of positional arguments to a function, below i am calling the function defined in a script.
Call:
notify "Error While Generating The List File: ${GEN_PARAM_LIST9} For Feed Data Validation Errors In... (1 Reply)
I need to call a function within a code with $database and $ service as the arguments How do I proceed ? and how would a function be defined and these two arguments would be used inside the function?
calc_pref_avail $database $service
Best regards,
Vishal (7 Replies)
I have trouble getting this logic to work
#!/bin/bash
function assign_var(){
while
do
read -p "$2 :" $3
done
}
assign_var '$IPADDRESS' ipaddress IPADDRESS
Basicly, i want to make sure that entry is made (i can add more sophisticated checks later), but the idea is to recycle... (11 Replies)
Hi Guys,
I am trying to pass arguments to the script i am wrinting.
When no argument is passed or wrong argument is passed, the script needs to output the way it needs to be called and exit.
Currently, when no arguments is passed, it is not getting exited but goes on assuming those... (3 Replies)
Hi,
I've a logging function in bourne shell, flog() which logs the first argument passed to it. How can I pass arguments to this function from a file, like
cat filename | sed '...filtering...' | flog
or
cat filename | sed '...filtering...' | xargs flog
Which did not work, after which... (3 Replies)
#include <pthread.h>
#include <signal.h>
...
sigset_t mask;
int err,signo;
err=sigwait(&mask,&signo);
switch(signo){
case SIGINT:
...
}
when I compile above code under solaris 10,it raise following error:
error: too many arguments to function 'sigwait'
I look up signal... (4 Replies)
Hi,
I have a function in shell script
fun1{ echo "No.of arguments are..."}
this function will be called in same script by passing arguments
fun 1 2 3
I want to check the no. of arguments passed to fun1 function in the same functionbefore validation.
can any one suggest me. (2 Replies)