UNIX for Advanced & Expert Users

Hi all
Does the notion of QA make sense when talking about shell script development?
I would like to put in place such a QA procedure to ensure the code we provide is full compliant with certain norms we think are right. I just thought it would be a good idea to ask the community about the following things:

- Are there any QA tools for shell scripts on the market?
- If you think an internal QA procedure implementation is more adapted, which criterions would you suggest to base the checks on?

Cheers

Doesn't seem this thread has got so much success so far... so let's boost it a little bit.

I had a look on the net to check for QA tools and I can tell my search wasn't that successful. I simply wonder if QA even exists for shell programming, but could it be also that QA only makes sense when internally defined as well as maintained, which would explain why there is so poor reference about it on the web?

Or, could it be that shell script pays the price to only be seen as a "support" programming language at a OS level to applications coded in more evaluated languages (where you really find QA procedures).

What do you think about it?

Hi Indalecio.
First of all, I'm not an expert in QA as long as developing is not related to my actual job. Now, back to answering your question about QA in shell scripts, I haven't heard about it before, at least in shell script terms, of course. I' more close to:
Though, I'd say that shell scripts are meant to help sysadmins to automate their tasks, not to make "real & complex" apps. This, in my modest opinion, could be the reason why there's nothing related to QA in this field.

Regards.

Thanks for your response, grial.

I think you're pointing to something right: it has definitely something to do with the way people use shell scripts.
Apart from performing quickly one-time tasks as you supposed in your reply, I heavily use shell scripts to maintain a system interface as well as a bunch of utilities securing the data input/output from the system I'm responsible for.

Now, not many people will actually look deeper into these interface scripts apart from me and a few team members. However, I just wonder if this would justify the fact we have no quality assurance on these scripts, as they almost are as important as the code used behind the interface.

I think I will implement some kind of a basic qa-script to secure at least documentation, backup and version control. The rest is more or less pointless as long as the code's visibility and a few more things like the usage specification and the code comments look fine.

Yes, I also use scripting in some more complex tasks and, of course, I try to assure a minimum quality in terms, mainly, of documentation, comments, version control, etc. But in this world of sysadmins, this task is up to you. In some way it's a matter of making your life easy. Specially when you mantain a great amount of machines and you work in a huge team. But again, no matter how complicated your scripts are, they're not considered as apps. However, that does not mean that those QA techniques or procedures are not suitable for scripting "apps". Even more, in some cases it could be useful.

That's what I say above: QA It's up to you.

Very interesting. I've never thought of implementing that... I just practice my own "QA" just to help myself (and partners) beacuse, nobody's gonna check my scripts. Perhaps, only, their functionality but that's all.

Regards.

if your scripts affect the business or your company's bottom line, it would be best to treat them as apps --- regardless of what developers think --- and QA them to make sure that whoever needs to support their upkeep can easily do it and to make sure that they adhere to certain standards (i.e., not emailing server error reports to management, not using plain FTP to transfer financial data files, etc.) ...

in this highly audited world we now operate under, all scripts that affect production will eventually be looked at with more than a passing glance and could possibly affect your job situation if found to be non-compliant ...

I agree. That's what it should be, but in my experience it's not. I mean, there is no control but when something fails.

Exactly. They all will eventually be looked at. But most scripts are no controlled untill they "affect" your job situation, don't you think?
Of course there are places where everithing is taken into account, and must fulfil a bunch of rules and requirements. I think that's a matter of money.