Welcome to the bash-utils library!

This project provides a set of simple yet useful tools for developers working in the Linux environment on a regular basis. It consists of two main parts:

• a library of functions and aliases designed to speed up process of creation of bash scripts; there is also a set of tools designed to be used directy from the command line - these are mainly related to software used by the author

• a set of scripts performing tasks that have popped out suprisingly often in the author's work over past few years

The project has been developed on the Ubuntu 20.04LTS system with bash in version 5.0.17, but as far as the knows it should play well with bash in versions not lower than 4.3.

Content

.vscode - bash-utils is developed using Visual Studio Code. This directory is not a core part of the library but provides my current configuration of the environment. I leave it here with hope that some of extensions I use will turn out to be helpful also in your daily routine!

bin - bash scripts implementing simple configuration/installation routines (these scripts are also good entry point for observing lib components in action)

dep - project's dependencies

lib - library of useful bash functions and aliases

• lib/debug - tools related to debugging bash scripts
• lib/files - general file-manipulation tools
• lib/logging - small logging framework (with colours!)
• lib/processing - my little attempt to make bash language more programmers-friendly
• lib/programs - set of tools related to installation and inspection of external software installed on the system
• lib/scripting - aliases and functions aimed to speed up process of creation of bash scripts
• lib/shell - miscellaneous functions inteded to be used from the command line that speed up my daily work
• lib/system - functions inspecting various system traits
• lib/test - simple helpers for writting more flexible test suites

scripts - when some goals cannot be achieved using standard Linux tools, it is high time to write your own - of course in Python (really, try to extract a ZIP archieve while displaying a nice - i.e. not dot-based - progress bar using Linux toolset, I dare you!)

test - a set of unit tests that (in theory) should elminate most of bugs from the library; I have always been better at fixing stuff than breaking them, so the testsuite is far from being exhaustive; if you feel like having gift for making creative test scenarios, don't hesitate to add your own!

Usage

To use the project, just download it and source source_me.bash file every time you need some of its tools (or add source <BASH_UTILS_INSTALLATION_PATH>/source_me.bash into your scripts). Definitions provided by the library will be automatically sourced and path to the bin/ folder will be appended to the PATH. Right after downloading the project you will also need to call source_me.bash with a setup keyword. This will make the project download/update its dependencies (these are listed directly in the source_me.bash).

Dependencies

bash-utils uses shpec (version 0.3.1) to implement unit tests for the library. Unit tests for bash scripts? Yeah, I have never expected that I would ever write something like that too .-.

Future work

parseargs

At the moment, the 'full' parseargs module (lib/scripting/parseargs) is implemented completely in bash and utilizes a lot of name indirections. For this reason it performs purely in complex projects that require calling it very often. It is planned to bring it to the binary domain as a standalone application compiled automatically by the project. Such an approach would provide huge performance boost without loosing elasticity.