Bash Pitfalls

I consider shellcheck absolutely essential if you're writing even a single line of Bash. I also start all my scripts with this "unofficial bash strict mode" and DIR= shortcut: #!/usr/bin/env bash ### Bash Environment Setup # http://redsymbol.net/articles/unofficial-bash-strict-mode/ # https://www.gnu.org/software/bash/manual/html_node/The-Set-Builtin.html # set -o xtrace set -o errexit set -o errtrace set -o nounset set -o pipefail IFS=$'\n' DIR="$( cd "$( dirname "${BASH_SOURCE[0]}" )" && pwd )" I have more…

If your bash script is not trivial, and target machines have python, it's probably better to use sh: https://amoffat.github.io/sh/

It's the problem of nested DSLs (sed, tr, globing, bash's own control commands etc): you need to quote (escape) each DSL's meta-characters like crazy. It's a scary, horrific nightmare. Sure, you can learn all the intricacies, but what a waste of your cognition! There must be a way to do it with clean abstractions (assuming the unrealistic liberty to redesign all unix commands). But... I have a suspicion that the horror is intrinsic to the problem, and bash strikes a…

This sounds more like a case of “know what the things in your pipeline do, if it’s odd/abnormal” than “avoid -o pipefail”.