• 2 Posts
  • 121 Comments
Joined 1 year ago
Cake day: June 26th, 2023
  • Zucca@sopuli.xyztoLinux@lemmy.ml•bash coding standards?
    2·
    9 hours ago

    I had several tests at the beginning of the script. These tests define the “low-level” functions based the capability of the shell. To test new features I “simply” ran all the necessary commands on the test environments (bash, busybox, toybox+mksh).

    The script would error out if some necessary capability was missing from the host system. It also had a feature to switch shell if it found a better one (preferring busybox and its internal tools).

    Yeah… It was tedious process. It was one of those “I’ll write a simple script. So simple that it’ll work on almost every posixy shell.”… rest is history.

  • Zucca@sopuli.xyztoLinux@lemmy.ml•bash coding standards?
    4·
    21 hours ago

    I would then assume those scripts weren’t written properly to begin with.

    But yes, shell scripts should be used (normally) to automate some simple tasks (file copying, backups…) or as an wrapper to exec some other program. I’ve written several shell scripts to automate things on my personal machines.

    However shell script can be complex program while at the same time being (somewhat) easy to maintain:

    • functions, use functions, alot
      • comment every function and describe what it expects in stdin or as an arguments
      • also comment what it outputs or sets

    This way at least I don’t break my scripts, when I need to modify a function or some way extend my scripts. Keeping the UNIX philosophy inside shell scripts: let one function do one thing well.

    And of course: YMMV. People have wastly different coding standards when it comes to personal little(?) projects.

  • Zucca@sopuli.xyztoLinux@lemmy.ml•bash coding standards?
    3·
    21 hours ago
    • utilize awk if you need to process (=more complex than just grepping) large amounts of text.
      • make your awk code conform to at least busybox awk for compability

    I once did a sh script that needed (because I wanted a challenge?) to be compatible with vanilla Android shell too. So I needed to test it with regular bash, busybox and mksh+toybox. That was ‘fun’.

    I’ve had some initial plans to spllit the code out from that project and develop a “shell” library that would ease building shell scripts that are compatible with different systems… But I bet someone else has already done that.

  • Zucca@sopuli.xyztoLinux@lemmy.ml•It's time to move to Linux - YouTube
    71·
    1 month ago

    Yes.

    Really the hardest part of desktop linux for a regular, so called “internet user”, in the installation.

    They don’t have no clue how to install an operating system, even windows.

    I once installed CentOS workstation for my father on his ThinkPad. Firefox and Libreoffice is all he needs. Automatic updates in the background make sure all the latest security patches are applied. There have been few time when, after the update, the laptop hangs at boot. I’ve since told him to choose the second-to-last boot option from the “start-up menu” until the fix for the bug has been deployed (usually in within a 24h).

    So really using Linux isn’t the hard part. Back in 2004 (ish) I went the painful route of installing my first Linux - Gentoo. But boy I learned a lot from it. Yes, I had a helping friend to get me over the hardest parts.