3 gsu is a small library of bash functions intended to ease the task of
4 writing and documenting large shell scripts with multiple subcommands,
5 each providing different functionality. gsu is known to work on Linux,
6 FreeBSD, NetBSD and MacOS.
8 This document describes how to install and use the gsu library.
12 gsu is very easy to install:
16 gsu is implemented in bash, and thus gsu depends on bash. Bash version
17 4.3 is required. Besides bash, gsu depends only on programs which are
18 usually installed on any Unix system (awk, grep, sort, ...). Care has
19 been taken to not rely on GNU specific behavior of these programs,
20 so it should work on non GNU systems (MacOS, FreeBSD, NetBSD) as
21 well. The gui module depends on the dialog utility.
25 All gsu modules are contained in a git repository. Get a copy with
27 git clone git://git.tuebingen.mpg.de/gsu.git
29 There is also a [gitweb](http://git.tuebingen.mpg.de/gsu.git) page.
33 gsu consists of several independent modules which are all located
34 at the top level directory of the git repository. gsu requires no
35 installation beyond downloading. In particular it is not necessary
36 to make the downloaded files executable. The library modules can
37 be sourced directly, simply tell your application where to find
38 it. The examples of this document assume that gsu is installed in
39 `/usr/local/lib/gsu` but this is not mandatory. `~/.gsu` is another
44 ___Public and private functions and variables___
46 Although there is no way in bash to annotate symbols (functions
47 and variables) as private or public, gsu distinguishes between the
48 two. The `gsu_*` name space is reserved for public symbols while all
49 private symbols start with `_gsu`.
51 Private symbols are meant for internal use only. Applications should
52 never use them directly because name and semantics might change
55 The public symbols, on the other hand, define the gsu API. This API
56 must not change in incompatible ways that would break existing
59 ___`$ret` and `$result`___
61 All public gsu functions set the $ret variable to an integer value
62 to indicate success or failure. As a convention, `$ret < 0` means
63 failure while a non-negative value indicates success.
65 The `$result` variable contains either the result of a function (if any)
66 or further information in the error case. A negative value of `$ret` is
67 in fact an error code similar to the errno variable used in C programs.
68 It can be turned into a string that describes the error. The public
69 `gsu_err_msg()` function can be used to pretty-print a suitable error
70 message provided `$ret` and `$result` are set appropriately.
74 This gsu module provides helper functions to ease the repetitious task
75 of writing applications which operate in several related modes, where
76 each mode of operation corresponds to a subcommand of the application.
78 With gsu, for each subcommand one must only write a _command handler_
79 which is simply a function that implements the subcommand. All
80 processing is done by the gsu library. Functions starting with the
81 string `com_` are automatically recognized as subcommand handlers.
83 The startup part of the script has to source the subcommand file of
84 gsu and must then call
95 . /usr/local/lib/gsu/subcommand || exit 1
98 Save this code in a file called `hello` (adjusting the installation
99 directory if necessary), make it executable (`chmod +x hello`) and try
105 Here, we have created a bash script (`hello`) that has a single "mode"
106 of operation, specified by the subcommand `world`.
108 gsu automatically generates several reserved subcommands, which should
109 not be specified: `help, man, prefs, complete`.
111 ___Command handler structure___
113 For the automatically generated help and man subcommands to work
114 properly, all subcommand handlers must be documented. In order to be
115 recognized as subcommand help text, comments must be prefixed with
116 two `#` characters and the subcommand documentation must be located
117 between the function "declaration", `com_world()` in the example above,
118 and the opening brace that starts the function body.
130 The subcommand documentation consists of the following parts:
132 - The summary. One line of text,
133 - the usage/synopsis string,
134 - free text section 1,
136 - free text section 2.
138 The last three parts are optional. All parts should be separated by
139 lines consisting of two `#` characters only. Example:
143 ## Print the string "hello world" to stdout.
147 ## Any arguments to this function are ignored.
149 ## -v: Enable verbose mode
151 ## Warning: This subcommand may cause the top most line of your terminal to
152 ## disappear and may cause DATA LOSS in your scrollback buffer. Use with
156 [[ "$1" == '-v' ]] && printf '!'
160 Replace `hello` with the above and try:
167 to check the automatically generated help and man subcommands.
171 As mentioned above, all public functions of gsu return an error code
172 in the `$ret` variable. A negative value indicates failure, and in this
173 case `$result` contains more information about the error. The same
174 convention applies for subcommand handlers: gsu will automatically
175 print an error message to stderr if a subcommand handler returns with
176 `$ret` set to a negative value.
178 To allow for error codes defined by the application, the
179 `$gsu_errors` variable must be set before calling `gsu()`. Each
180 non-empty line in this variable should contain an identifier and error
181 string. Identifiers are written in upper case and start with `E_`. For
182 convenience the `$GSU_SUCCESS` variable is defined to non-negative
183 value. Subcommand handlers should set `$ret` to `$GSU_SUCCESS` on
186 To illustrate the `$gsu_errors` variable, assume the task is to
187 print all mount points which correspond to an ext3 file system in
188 `/etc/fstab`. We'd like to catch two possible errors: (a) the file
189 does not exist or is not readable, and (b) it contains no ext3 entry.
190 A possible implementation of the ext3 subcommand could look like this
191 (documentation omitted):
196 E_NOENT No such file or directory
197 E_NOEXT3 No ext3 file system detected
205 if [[ ! -r "$f" ]]; then
210 ext3_lines=$(awk '{if ($3 == "ext3") print $2}' "$f")
211 if [[ -z "$ext3_lines" ]]; then
216 printf 'ext3 mount points:\n%s\n' "$ext3_lines"
220 ___Printing diagnostic output___
222 gsu provides a couple of convenience functions for output. All
223 functions write to stderr.
225 - `gsu_msg()`. Writes the name of the application and the given text.
227 - `gsu_short_msg()`. Like `gsu_msg()`, but does not print the application name.
229 - `gsu_date_msg()`. Writes application name, date, and the given text.
231 - `gsu_err_msg()`. Prints an error message according to `$ret` and `$result`.
233 ___Subcommands with options___
235 Bash's getopts builtin provides a way to define and parse command line
236 options, but it is cumbersome to use because one must loop over all
237 given arguments and check the `OPTIND` and `OPTARG` variables during
238 each iteration. The `gsu_getopts()` function makes this repetitive
241 `gsu_getopts()` takes a single argument: the optstring which contains
242 the option characters to be recognized. As usual, if a character is
243 followed by a colon, the option is expected to have an argument. On
244 return `$result` contains bash code that should be eval'ed to parse
245 the position parameters `$1`, `$2`, ... of the subcommand according
248 The shell code returned by `gsu_getopts()` creates a local variable
249 `$o_x` for each defined option `x`. It contains `true/false` for
250 options without argument and either the empty string or the given
251 argument for options that take an argument.
253 To illustrate `gsu_getopts()`, assume the above `com_ext3()` subcommand
254 handler is to be extended to allow for arbitrary file systems, and
255 that it should print either only the mount point as before or the
256 full line of `/etc/fstab`, depending on whether the verbose switch
257 `-v` was given at the command line.
259 Hence our new subcommand handler must recognize two options: `-t` for
260 the file system type and `-v`. Note that `-t` takes an argument but
261 `-v` does not. Hence we shall use the optstring `t:v` as the argument
262 for `gsu_getopts()` as follows:
267 local fstype fstab_lines
272 ((ret < 0)) && return
274 [[ -z "$o_t" ]] && o_t='ext3' # default to ext3 if -t is not given
275 [[ "$o_v" == 'true' ]] && awk_field=0 # $0 is the whole line
276 fstab_lines=$(awk -v fstype="$o_t" -v n="$awk_field" \
277 '{if ($3 == fstype) print $n}' "$f")
278 printf '%s entries:\n%s\n' "$o_t" "$fstab_lines"
282 Another repetitive task is to check the number of non-option arguments
283 and to report an error if this number turns out to be invalid for the
284 subcommand in question. The `gsu_check_arg_count()` function performs
285 this check and sets `$ret` and `$result` as appropriate. This function
286 takes three arguments: the actual argument count and the minimal and
287 maximal number of non-option arguments allowed. The last argument may
288 be omitted in which case any number of arguments is considered valid.
290 Our `com_world()` subcommand handler above ignored any given
291 arguments. Let's assume we'd like to handle this case and
292 print an error message if one or more arguments are given. With
293 `gsu_check_arg_count()` this can be achieved as follows:
297 gsu_check_arg_count $# 0 0 # no arguments allowed
298 ((ret < 0)) && return
302 ___Global documentation___
304 Besides the documentation for subcommands, one might also want to
305 include an overall description of the application which provides
306 general information that is not related to any particular subcommand.
308 If such a description is included at the top of the script, the
309 automatically generated man subcommand will print it. gsu recognizes
310 the description only if it is enclosed by two lines consisting of at
311 least 70 # characters.
317 #######################################################################
318 # gsu-based hello - a cumbersome way to write a hello world program
319 # -----------------------------------------------------------------
320 # It not only requires one to download and install some totally weird
321 # git repo, it also takes about 50 lines of specially written code
322 # to perform what a simple echo 'hello world' would do equally well.
323 #######################################################################
327 The auto-generated man subcommand produces plain text, html, or
330 ./hello man -m html > index.html
332 is all it takes to produce an html page for your
333 application. Similarly,
335 ./hello man -m roff > hello.1
337 creates a manual page.
339 ___Interactive completion___
341 The auto-generated `complete` subcommand provides interactive bash
342 completion. To activate completion for the hello program, it is
343 enough to put the following into your `~/.bashrc`:
347 eval $(hello complete 2>/dev/null)
349 complete -F _hello hello
351 This will give you completion for the first argument of the hello
352 program: the subcommand.
354 In order to get subcommand-sensitive completion you must provide a
355 _completer_ in your application for each subcommand that is to support
356 completion. Like subcommand handlers, completers are recognized by name:
357 If a function `xxx_complete()` is defined, gsu will call it on the
358 attempt to complete the `xxx` subcommand at the subcommand line. gsu
359 has a few functions to aid you in writing a completer.
361 Let's have a look at the completer for the above `fs` subcommand.
366 local optstring='t:v'
368 gsu_complete_options $optstring "$@"
369 ((ret > 0)) && return
371 gsu_cword_is_option_parameter $optstring "$@"
372 [[ "$result" == 't' ]] && awk '{print $3}' "$f"
375 Completers are always called with `$1` set to the index into the array
376 of words in the current command line when tab completion was attempted
377 (see `COMP_CWORD` in the bash manual). These words are passed to the
378 completer as `$2`, `$3`,...
380 `gsu_complete_options()` receives the option string as `$1`, the word
381 index as `$2` and the individual words as `$3`, `$4`,... Hence we
382 may simply pass the `$optstring` and `"$@"`. `gsu_complete_options()`
383 checks if the current word begins with `-`, i.e., whether an attempt
384 to complete an option was performed. If yes `gsu_complete_options()`
385 prints all possible command line options and sets `$ret` to a
388 The last two lines of `complete_fs()` check whether the word preceding
389 the current word is an option that takes an argument. If it is,
390 that option is returned in `$result`, otherwise `$result` is the empty
391 string. Hence, if we are completing the argument to `-t`, the awk
392 command is executed to print all file system types of `/etc/fstab` as
393 the possible completions.
395 See the comments to `gsu_complete_options()`,
396 `gsu_cword_is_option_parameter()` and `gsu_get_unnamed_arg_num()`
397 (which was not covered here) in the `subcommand` file for a more
398 detailed description.
402 This module can be employed to create interactive dialog boxes from a
403 bash script. It depends on the dialog(1) utility which is available on
404 all Unix systems. On Debian and Ubuntu Linux it can be installed with
406 apt-get install dialog
408 The core of the gui module is the `gsu_gui()` function which receives
409 a _menu tree_ as its single argument. The menu tree defines a tree
410 of menus for the user to navigate with the cursor keys. As for a
411 file system tree, internal tree nodes represent folders. Leaf nodes,
412 on the other hand, correspond to _actions_. Pressing enter activates a
413 node. On activation, for internal nodes a new menu with the contents of
414 the subfolder is shown. For leaf nodes the associated _action handler_
417 Hence the application has to provide a menu tree and an action handler
418 for each leaf node defined in the tree. The action handler is simply a
419 function which is named according to the node. In most cases the action
420 handler will run dialog(1) to show some dialog box on its own. Wrappers
421 for some widgets of dialog are provided by the gui module, see below.
425 The concept of a menu tree is best illustrated by an example. Assume
426 we'd like to write a system utility for the not-so-commandline-affine
427 Linux sysadmin next door. For the implementation we confine ourselves
428 with giving some insight in the system by running lean system commands
429 like `df` to show the list of file system, or `dmesg` to print the
430 contents of the kernel log buffer. Bash code which defines the menu
431 tree could look like this:
447 In this tree, `hardware/`, `storage/` and `log/` are the only
448 internal nodes. Note that these are written with a trailing slash
449 character while the leaf nodes have no slash at the end. All entries
450 of the menu tree must be indented by tab characters.
452 ___Action handlers___
454 Action handlers are best explained via example:
456 Our application, let's call it `lsi` for _lean system information_,
457 must provide action handlers for all leaf nodes. Here is the action
458 handler for the `df` node:
462 gsu_msgbox "$(df -h)"
465 The function name `lsi_df` is derived from the name of the script
466 (`lsi`) and the name of the leaf node (`df`). The function simply
467 passes the output of the `df(1)` command as the first argument to the
468 public gsu function `gsu_msgbox()` which runs dialog(1) to display
469 a message box that shows the given text.
471 `gsu_msgbox()` is suitable for small amounts of output. For essentially
472 unbounded output like log files that can be arbitrary large, it is
473 better to use `gsu_textbox()` instead which takes a path to the file
474 that contains the text to show.
476 To illustrate `gsu_input_box()` function, assume the action handler
477 for the `processes` leaf node should ask for a username, and display
478 all processes owned by the given user. This could be implemented
485 gsu_inputbox 'Enter username' "$LOGNAME"
486 ((ret != 0)) && return
488 gsu_msgbox "$(pgrep -lu "$username")"
491 Once all other action handlers have been defined, the only thing left
492 to do is to source the gsu gui module and to call `gsu_gui()`:
494 . /usr/local/lib/gsu/gui || exit 1
499 The complete lsi script below can be used as a starting point for your
500 own gsu gui application. If you cut and paste it, be sure to not turn
501 tab characters into space characters. The script must be named "lsi".
521 gsu_msgbox "$(cat /proc/loadavg)"
528 gsu_inputbox 'Enter username' "$LOGNAME"
529 ((ret < 0)) && return
531 gsu_msgbox "$(pgrep -lu "$username")"
536 gsu_msgbox "$(lscpu)"
541 gsu_msgbox "$(lsscsi)"
546 gsu_msgbox "$(df -h)"
551 gsu_msgbox "$(cat /proc/mdstat)"
556 local tmp="$(mktemp)" || exit 1
558 trap "rm -f $tmp" EXIT
565 gsu_textbox '/var/log/syslog'
568 . /usr/local/lib/gsu/gui || exit 1
573 Some applications need config options which are not related to
574 any particular subcommand, like the URL of a web service, the path
575 to some data directory, or a default value which is to be used by
576 several subcommands. Such options do not change frequently and are
577 hence better stored in a configuration file rather than passed to
578 every subcommand that needs the information.
580 The config module of gsu makes it easy to maintain such options and
581 performs routine tasks like reading and checking the values given in
582 the config file, or printing out the current configuration. It can
583 be used stand-alone, or in combination with either the subcommand or
586 ___Defining config options___
588 To use the config module, you must define the `$gsu_options`
589 bash array. Each config option is represented by one slot in this
590 array. Here is an example which defines two options:
598 description='file system type to consider'
600 This option is used in various contexts. All
601 subcommands which need a file system type
602 use the value specified here as the default.
610 description='print at most this many lines of output'
614 Each config option consists of the following fields:
616 - `name`. This must be a valid bash variable name. Hence no special
617 characters are allowed.
619 - `option_type`. Only `string` and `num` are supported but additional
620 types might be supported in future versions. While string variables
621 may have arbitrary content, only integers are accepted for variables
624 - `default_value`. The value to use if the option was not specified.
626 - `required`. Whether gsu considers it an error if the option was
627 not specified. It does not make sense to set this to `true` and set
628 `default_value` at the same time.
630 - `description`. Short description of the variable. It is printed by
631 the `prefs` subcommand.
633 - `help_text`. Optional long description, also printed by `prefs`.
635 To enable the config module you must source the config module of gsu
636 after `$gsu_options` has been defined:
638 . /usr/local/lib/gsu/config || exit 1
640 ___Passing config options to the application___
642 There are two ways to pass the value of an option to a gsu application:
643 environment variable and config file. The default config file is
644 `~/.$gsu_name.rc` where `$gsu_name` is the basename of the application,
645 but this can be changed by setting `$gsu_config_file`. Thus, the
646 following two statements are equivalent
649 echo 'fs_type=xfs' > ~/.hello.rc && hello fs
651 If an option is set both in the environment and in the config file,
652 the environment takes precedence.
654 The `$gsu_config_file` variable can actually contain more than one
655 filename, separated by spaces. The config files are processed in
656 order, so that an option that is specified in the second config file
657 overwrites the definition given in the first. This is useful for
658 applications which implement a system-wide config file in addition
659 to a per-user config file.
661 ___Checking config options___
663 The gsu config module defines two public functions for this purpose:
664 `gsu_check_options()` and `gsu_check_options_or_die()`. The latter
665 function exits on errors while the former function only sets `$ret`
666 and `$result` as appropriate and lets the application deal with the
667 error. The best place to call one of these functions is after sourcing
668 the config module but before calling `gsu()` or `gsu_gui()`.
670 ___Using config values___
672 The name of an option as specified in `$gsu_options` (`fs_type` in
673 the example above) is what users of your application may specify at
674 the command line or in the config file. This leads to a mistake that
675 is easy to make and difficult to debug: The application might use a
676 variable name which is also a config option.
678 To reduce the chance for this to happen, `gsu_check_options()` creates
679 a different set of variables for the application where each variable
680 is prefixed with `${gsu_name}`. For example, if `$gsu_options` as above
681 is part of the hello script, `$hello_fs_type` and `$hello_limit` are
682 defined after `gsu_check_options()` returned successfully. Only the
683 prefixed variants are guaranteed to contain the proper value, so this
684 variable should be used exclusively in the application. The
685 prefix may be changed by setting `$gsu_config_var_prefix` before calling
686 `gsu_check_options()`.
690 For scripts which source both the subcommand and the config module, the
691 auto-generated `prefs` subcommand prints out the current configuration
692 and exits. The description and help text of the option as specified
693 in the `description` and `help_text` fields of `$gsu_options` are shown
694 as comments in the output. Hence this output can be used as a template
697 List of public variables
698 ------------------------
699 - `$gsu_dir`. Where gsu is installed. If unset, gsu guesses
700 its installation directory by examining the `$BASH_SOURCE` array.
702 - `$gsu_name`. The name of the application. Defaults to `$0` with
703 all leading directories removed.
705 - `$gsu_banner_txt`. Used by both the subcommand and the gui
706 module. It is printed by the man subcommand, and as the title for
709 - `$gsu_errors`. Identifier/text pairs for custom error reporting.
711 - `$gsu_config_file`. The name of the config file of the application.
712 Defaults to `~/.${gsu_name}.rc`.
714 - `$gsu_options`. Array of config options, used by the config module.
716 - `$gsu_config_var_prefix`. Used by the config module to set up
717 the variables defined in `$gsu_options`.
719 - `$gsu_package`. Text shown at the bottom left of the man page,
720 usually the name and version number of the software package. Defaults
725 gsu is licensed under the GNU LESSER GENERAL PUBLIC LICENSE (LGPL), version 3.
726 See COPYING and COPYING.LESSER.
730 Send beer, pizza, patches, improvements, bug reports, flames,
731 (in this order), to Andre Noll <maan@tuebingen.mpg.de>.
735 - [bash](http://www.gnu.org/software/bash/bash.html)
736 - [dialog](http://www.invisible-island.net/dialog/dialog.html)
737 - [The author's home page](http://people.tuebingen.mpg.de/maan/)