Bash helper library – to everyone!

• bahelite.sh provides

  • A check for the bash version.
  • A check for sourced script.
  • MYNAME, MYDIR, MYPATH, CMDLINE, ARGS…
  • Functions to temporarily disable xtrace, errexit (with a trap on ERR) and noglob.
  • check_required_utils to make sure all binaries are available.

• bahelite_colours.sh provides variables to control the colour, boldness/brightness and background.

• bahelite_error_handling.sh

  • sets a trap on ERR, where it prints call stack trace, the command on which script has failed and its exit code. Calls a user’s hook, if it exists.
  • sets a trap on EXIT, TERM, INT, QUIT and KILL, where it removes TMPDIR. Calls a user’s hook, if it exists.
  • sets a trap on DEBUG for better error catching: now bahelite traps catch “unbound variable” errors, for example.

• bahelite_logging.sh

  • creates a directory named after the main script – the one that calls bahelite.sh – and writes a copy of all stderr and stdout in a file there. Keeps last five logs by default.
  • defines a function to print the path to the log file to the user.

• bahelite_menus.sh

  • defines user-friendly, arrow-key-controlled menu functions. Selection never was this easy and fool-proof before.

• bahelite_messages.sh

  • Pretty output
    • All messages are multiline by default: excess spaces on the lines next to the first are cut.
    • Messages may have their own indentation level, which is kept even.
    • Highlighing is moderate with only a coloured asterisk by default. It is possible to highlight the whole message and print the message type instead of an asterisk, that is INFO:, WARNING: or ERROR: for example.
  • Function sets
    • info function set: to print informational messages. infon doesn’t print a newline, (like echo -n), infow will run a command, and then print either [ OK ] or [ Fail ] depending on its status.
    • warn function set: for the warnings, always sent to stderr.
    • err: for the errors, automatically quits the program.
  • Desktop notifications
    • If not needed, can be disabled with setting NO_DESKTOP_NOTIFICATIONS to any value.
    • By default err sends a copy of the message to desktop.
    • info and warn – only when called as info-ns and warn-ns (-ns stands for notify-send).
  • Keyworded messages and localisation files are possible.

• bahelite_misc.sh

  • if_true reads a variable name and returns 0 or 1, depending on the variable contents: 0 is for y/Y/yes/Yes/on/On/enabled/Enabled/1/t/T/true/True and 1 for their counterparts.
  • dumpvar takes multiple variable names, passes them to declare -p and prettifies the output with msg function.

• bahelite_versioning.sh

  • update_version is a function to be used in a pre-commit hook to update the version in a specified variable in a specified file. Works with three-number X.Y.Z versions only, four-number ones like A.B.C.D are not supported.
  • compare_versions will print the biggest of the two passed versions, or equal, if they are equivalent.

• bahelite_github.sh

  • New function there will check, if a github repo got a new release. Can check for updates at a given interval.