Get the exit code for a command in Bash and KornShell (ksh)
Below is the fixed code:
#!/bin/ksh
safeRunCommand() {
typeset cmnd="$*"
typeset ret_code
echo cmnd=$cmnd
eval $cmnd
ret_code=$?
if [ $ret_code != 0 ]; then
printf "Error: [%d] when executing command: '$cmnd'" $ret_code
exit $ret_code
fi
}
command="ls -l | grep p"
safeRunCommand "$command"
Now if you look into this code, the few things that I changed are:
- use of
typeset
is not necessary, but it is a good practice. It makescmnd
andret_code
local tosafeRunCommand
- use of
ret_code
is not necessary, but it is a good practice to store the return code in some variable (and store it ASAP), so that you can use it later like I did inprintf "Error: [%d] when executing command: '$command'" $ret_code
- pass the command with quotes surrounding the command like
safeRunCommand "$command"
. If you don’t thencmnd
will get only the valuels
and notls -l
. And it is even more important if your command contains pipes. - you can use
typeset cmnd="$*"
instead oftypeset cmnd="$1"
if you want to keep the spaces. You can try with both depending upon how complex is your command argument. - 'eval' is used to evaluate so that a command containing pipes can work fine
Note: Do remember some commands give 1 as the return code even though there isn't any error like grep
. If grep
found something it will return 0, else 1.
I had tested with KornShell and Bash. And it worked fine. Let me know if you face issues running this.
Try
safeRunCommand() {
"$@"
if [ $? != 0 ]; then
printf "Error when executing command: '$1'"
exit $ERROR_CODE
fi
}
It should be $cmd
instead of $($cmd)
. It works fine with that on my box.
Your script works only for one-word commands, like ls. It will not work for "ls cpp". For this to work, replace cmd="$1"; $cmd
with "$@"
. And, do not run your script as command="some cmd"; safeRun command
. Run it as safeRun some cmd
.
Also, when you have to debug your Bash scripts, execute with '-x' flag. [bash -x s.sh].