[gsu.git] / README

<<
<img src='gsu.png' alt="gsu logo"><h2>The global subcommand utility</h2>
>>

gsu is a small library of bash functions intended to ease the task of
writing and documenting large shell scripts with multiple subcommands,
each providing different functionality. gsu is known to work on Linux,
FreeBSD, NetBSD and MacOS.

This document describes how to install and use the gsu library.

Setting up gsu
--------------
gsu is very easy to install:

Requirements
~~~~~~~~~~~~
gsu is implemented in bash, and thus gsu depends on bash. Bash version
3 is required, version 4 is recommended. Besides bash, gsu depends
only on programs which are usually installed on any Unix system (awk,
grep, sort, ...). Care has been taken to not rely on GNU specific
behavior of these programs, so it should work on non GNU systems
(MacOS, *BSD) as well. The gui module depends on the dialog utility.

Download
~~~~~~~~
All gsu modules are contained in a git repository. Get a copy with

        git clone git://git.tuebingen.mpg.de/gsu.git

There is also a http://ilm.eb.local/gitweb/?p=gsu;a=summary (gitweb) page.

Installation
~~~~~~~~~~~~
gsu consists of several independent modules which are all located
at the top level directory of the git repository. gsu requires no
installation beyond downloading. In particular it is not necessary
to make the downloaded files executable.  The library modules can
be sourced directly, simply tell your application where to find
it. The examples of this document assume that gsu is installed in
`/usr/local/lib/gsu' but this is not mandatory.`~/.gsu' is another
reasonable choice.

Conventions
-----------
Public and private functions and variables
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Although there is no way in bash to annotate symbols (functions
and variables) as private or public, gsu distinguishes between the
two. The `gsu_*' name space is reserved for public symbols while all
private symbols start with `_gsu'.

Private symbols are meant for internal use only. Applications should
never use them directly because name and semantics might change
between gsu versions.

The public symbols, on the other hand, define the gsu API. This API
must not change in incompatible ways that would break existing
applications.

$ret and $result
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
All public gsu functions set the $ret variable to an integer value to
indicate success or failure. As a convention, $ret < 0 means failure
while a non-negative value indicates success.

The $result variable contains either the result of a function (if any)
or further information in the error case. A negative value of $ret is
in fact an error code similar to the errno variable used in C programs.
It can be turned into a string that describes the error. The public
gsu_err_msg() function can be used to pretty-print a suitable error
message provided $ret and $result are set appropriately.

The subcommand module
---------------------
This gsu module provides helper functions to ease the repetitious task
of writing applications which operate in several related modes, where
each mode of operation corresponds to a subcommand of the application.

With gsu, for each subcommand one must only write a _command handler_
which is simply a function that implements the subcommand. All
processing is done by the gsu library. Functions starting with the
string `com_' are automatically recognized as subcommand handlers.

The startup part of the script has to source the subcommand file of
gsu and must then call

        gsu "$@"

Minimal example:

        #!/bin/bash
        com_world()
        {
                echo 'hello world'
        }
        . /usr/local/lib/gsu/subcommand || exit 1
        gsu "$@"

Save this code in a file called `hello' (adjusting the installation
directory if necessary), make it executable (`chmod +x hello') and try

        ./hello
        ./hello world
        ./hello invalid

Here, we have created a bash script ("hello") that has a single "mode"
of operation, specified by the subcommand "world".

gsu automatically generates several reserved subcommands, which should
not be specified: `help, man, prefs, complete'.

Command handler structure
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
For the automatically generated help and man subcommands to work
properly, all subcommand handlers must be documented. In order to be
recognized as subcommand help text, comments must be prefixed with
two `#' characters and the subcommand documentation must be located
between the function "declaration", com_world() in the example above,
and the opening brace that starts the function body.

Example:

        com_world()
        ##
        ##
        ##
        {
                echo 'hello world'
        }

The subcommand documentation consists of three parts:

 - The summary. One line of text,
 - the usage/synopsis string,
 - free text section.

The three parts should be separated by lines consisting of two # characters
only. Example:

        com_world()
        ##
        ## Print the string "hello world" to stdout.
        ##
        ## Usage: world
        ##
        ## Any arguments to this function are ignored.
        ##
        ## Warning: This subcommand may cause the top most line of your terminal to
        ## disappear and may cause DATA LOSS in your scrollback buffer. Use with
        ## caution.
        {
                echo 'hello world'
        }

Replace 'hello' with the above and try:

        ./hello help
        ./hello help world
        ./hello help invalid
        ./hello man

to check the automatically generated help and man subcommands.

Error codes
~~~~~~~~~~~
As mentioned above, all public functions of gsu return an error code
in the $ret variable. A negative value indicates failure, and in this
case $result contains more information about the error. The same
convention applies for subcommand handlers: gsu will automatically
print an error message to stderr if a subcommand handler returns with
$ret set to a negative value.

To allow for error codes defined by the application, the $gsu_errors
variable must be set before calling gsu(). Each non-empty line in this
variable should contain an identifier and error string. Identifiers
are written in upper case and start with `E_'. For convenience the
$GSU_SUCCESS variable is defined to non-negative value. Subcommand
handlers should set $ret to $GSU_SUCCESS on successful return.

To illustrate the $gsu_errors variable, assume the task is to
print all mount points which correspond to an ext3 file system in
`/etc/fstab'. We'd like to catch two possible errors: (a) the file
does not exist or is not readable, and (b) it contains no ext3 entry.
A possible implementation of the ext3 subcommand could look like this
(documentation omitted):

        #!/bin/bash

        gsu_errors='
                E_NOENT         No such file or directory
                E_NOEXT3        No ext3 file system detected
        '

        com_ext3()
        {
                local f='/etc/fstab'
                local ext3_lines

                if [[ ! -r "$f" ]]; then
                        ret=-$E_NOENT
                        result="$f"
                        return
                fi
                ext3_lines=$(awk '{if ($3 == "ext3") print $2}' "$f")
                if [[ -z "$ext3_lines" ]]; then
                        ret=-$E_NOEXT3
                        result="$f"
                        return
                fi
                printf 'ext3 mount points:\n%s\n' "$ext3_lines"
                ret=$GSU_SUCCESS
        }

Printing diagnostic output
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
gsu provides a couple of convenience functions for output. All
functions write to stderr.

 - *gsu_msg()*. Writes the name of the application and the given text.

 - *gsu_short_msg()*. Like gsu_msg(), but does not print the application name.

 - *gsu_date_msg()*. Writes application name, date, and the given text.

 - *gsu_err_msg()*. Prints an error message according to $ret and $result.

Subcommands with options
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Bash's getopts builtin provides a way to define and parse command line
options, but it is cumbersome to use because one must loop over all
given arguments and check the OPTIND and OPTARG variables during each
iteration. The gsu_getopts() function makes this repetitive task easier.

gsu_getopts() takes a single argument: the optstring which contains
the option characters to be recognized. As usual, if a character is
followed by a colon, the option is expected to have an argument. On
return $result contains bash code that should be eval'ed to parse the
position parameters $1, $2, ... of the subcommand according to the
optstring.

The shell code returned by gsu_getopts() creates a local variable $o_x
for each defined option `x'. It contains `true/false' for options
without argument and either the empty string or the given argument for
options that take an argument.

To illustrate gsu_getopts(), assume the above com_ext3() subcommand
handler is to be extended to allow for arbitrary file systems, and
that it should print either only the mount point as before or the
full line of `/etc/fstab', depending on whether the verbose switch
`-v' was given at the command line.

Hence our new subcommand handler must recognize two options: `-t' for
the file system type and `-v'. Note that `-t' takes an argument but `-v'
does not. Hence we shall use the optstring `t:v' as the argument for
gsu_getopts() as follows:

        com_fs()
        {
                local f='/etc/fstab'
                local fstype fstab_lines
                local -i awk_field=2

                gsu_getopts 't:v'
                eval "$result"
                (($ret < 0)) && return

                [[ -z "$o_t" ]] && o_t='ext3' # default to ext3 if -t is not given
                [[ "$o_v" == 'true' ]] && awk_field=0 # $0 is the whole line
                fstab_lines=$(awk -v fstype="$o_t" -v n="$awk_field" \
                        '{if ($3 == fstype) print $n}' "$f")
                printf '%s entries:\n%s\n' "$o_t" "$fstab_lines"
                ret=$GSU_SUCCESS
        }

Another repetitive task is to check the number of non-option arguments
and to report an error if this number turns out to be invalid for
the subcommand in question. The gsu_check_arg_count() function performs
this check and sets $ret and $result as appropriate. This function
takes three arguments: the actual argument count and the minimal and
maximal number of non-option arguments allowed. The last argument may
be omitted in which case any number of arguments is considered valid.

Our com_world() subcommand handler above ignored any given
arguments. Let's assume we'd like to handle this case and
print an error message if one or more arguments are given. With
gsu_check_arg_count() this can be achieved as follows:

        com_world()
        {
                gsu_check_arg_count $# 0 0 # no arguments allowed
                (($ret < 0)) && return
                echo 'hello world'
        }

Global documentation
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Besides the documentation for subcommands, one might also want to
include an overall description of the application which provides
general information that is not related to any particular subcommand.

If such a description is included at the top of the script, the
automatically generated man subcommand will print it. gsu recognizes
the description only if it is enclosed by two lines consisting of at
least 70 # characters.

Example:

        #/bin/bash

        #######################################################################
        # gsu-based hello - a cumbersome way to write a hello world program
        # ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
        # It not only requires one to download and install some totally weird
        # git repo, it also takes about 50 lines of specially written code
        # to perform what a simple echo 'hello world' would do equally well.
        #######################################################################

HTML output
~~~~~~~~~~~
The output of the auto-generated man subcommand is a suitable input for the
grutatxt plain text to html converter. Hence

        ./hello man | grutatxt > index.html

is all it takes to produce an html page for your application.

Interactive completion
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
The auto-generated `complete' subcommand provides interactive bash
completion.  To activate completion for the hello program, it is
enough to put the following into your `~/.bashrc':

        _hello()
        {
                eval $(hello complete 2>/dev/null)
        }
        complete -F _hello hello

This will give you completion for the first argument of the hello
program: the subcommand.

In order to get subcommand-sensitive completion you must provide a
_completer_ in your application for each subcommand that is to support
completion. Like subcommand handlers, completers are recognized by name:
If a function xxx_complete() is defined, gsu will call it on the
attempt to complete the `xxx' subcommand at the subcommand line. gsu
has a few functions to aid you in writing a completer.

Let's have a look at the completer for the above `fs' subcommand.

        complete_fs()
        {
                local f='/etc/fstab'
                local optstring='t:v'

                gsu_complete_options $optstring "$@"
                (($ret > 0)) && return

                gsu_cword_is_option_parameter $optstring "$@"
                [[ "$result" == 't' ]] && awk '{print $3}' "$f"
        }

Completers are always called with $1 set to the index into the array
of words in the current command line when tab completion was attempted
(see `COMP_CWORD' in the bash manual). These words are passed to the
completer as $2, $3,...

gsu_complete_options() receives the option string as $1, the word
index as $2 and the individual words as $3, $4,... Hence we may simply
pass the $optstring and `"$@"'. gsu_complete_options() checks if the
current word begins with `-', i.e., whether an attempt to complete
an option was performed. If yes gsu_complete_options() prints all
possible command line options and sets $ret to a positive value.

The last two lines of complete_fs() check whether the word preceding
the current word is an option that takes an argument. If it is,
that option is returned in $result, otherwise $result is the empty
string. Hence, if we are completing the argument to `-t', the awk
command is executed to print all file system types of /etc/fstab as
the possible completions.

See the comments to gsu_complete_options(),
gsu_cword_is_option_parameter() and gsu_get_unnamed_arg_num()
(which was not covered here) in the `subcommand' file for a more
detailed description.

The gui module
--------------
This module can be employed to create interactive dialog boxes from a
bash script. It depends on the dialog(1) utility which is available on
all Unix systems. On Debian and Ubuntu Linux it can be installed with

        apt-get install dialog

The core of the gui module is the gsu_gui() function which receives
a _menu tree_ as its single argument. The menu tree defines a tree
of menus for the user to navigate with the cursor keys. As for a
file system tree, internal tree nodes represent folders. Leaf nodes,
on the other hand, correspond to _actions_. Pressing enter activates a
node. On activation, for internal nodes a new menu with the contents of
the subfolder is shown. For leaf nodes the associated _action handler_
is executed.

Hence the application has to provide a menu tree and an action handler
for each leaf node defined in the tree. The action handler is simply a
function which is named according to the node. In most cases the action
handler will run dialog(1) to show some dialog box on its own. Wrappers
for some widgets of dialog are provided by the gui module, see below.

Menu trees
~~~~~~~~~~
The concept of a menu tree is best illustrated by an example. Assume
we'd like to write a system utility for the not-so-commandline-affine
Linux sysadmin next door. For the implementation we confine ourselves
with giving some insight in the system by running lean system commands
like `df' to show the list of file system, or `dmesg' to print the
contents of the kernel log buffer. Bash code which defines the menu
tree could look like this:

        menu_tree='
                load_average
                processes
                hardware/
                        cpu
                        scsi
                storage/
                        df
                        mdstat
                log/
                        syslog
                        dmesg
        '

In this tree, `hardware/', `block_devices/' and `log/' are the only
internal nodes. Note that these are written with a trailing slash
character while the leaf nodes have no slash at the end. All entries
of the menu tree must be indented by tab characters.

Action handlers
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Action handlers are best explained via example:

Our application, let's call it `lsi' for _lean system information_,
must provide action handlers for all leaf nodes. Here is the action
handler for the `df' node:

        lsi_df()
        {
                gsu_msgbox "$(df -h)"
        }

The function name `lsi_df' is derived from the name of the script
(`lsi') and the name of the leaf node (`df'). The function simply
passes the output of the `df(1)' command as the first argument to
the public gsu function gsu_msgbox() which runs dialog(1) to display
a message box that shows the given text.

gsu_msgbox() is suitable for small amounts of output. For essentially
unbounded output like log files that can be arbitrary large, it is
better to use gsu_textbox() instead which takes a path to the file
that contains the text to show.

To illustrate gsu_input_box() function, assume the action handler
for the `processes' leaf node should ask for a username, and display
all processes owned by the given user. This could be implemented
as follows.

        lsi_processes()
        {
                local username

                gsu_inputbox 'Enter username' "$LOGNAME"
                (($ret != 0)) && return
                username="$result"
                gsu_msgbox "$(pgrep -lu "$username")"
        }

Once all other action handlers have been defined, the only thing left
to do is to source the gsu gui module and to call gsu_gui():

        . /usr/local/lib/gsu/gui || exit 1
        gsu_gui "$menu_tree"

Example
~~~~~~~
The complete lsi script below can be used as a starting point
for your own gsu gui application. If you cut and paste it, be
sure to not turn tab characters into space characters.

        #!/bin/bash

        menu_tree='
                load_average
                processes
                hardware/
                        cpu
                        scsi
                storage/
                        df
                        mdstat
                log/
                        syslog
                        dmesg
        '

        lsi_load_average()
        {
                gsu_msgbox "$(cat /proc/loadavg)"
        }

        lsi_processes()
        {
                local username

                gsu_inputbox 'Enter username' "$LOGNAME"
                (($ret < 0)) && return
                username="$result"
                gsu_msgbox "$(pgrep -lu "$username")"
        }

        lsi_cpu()
        {
                gsu_msgbox "$(lscpu)"
        }

        lsi_scsi()
        {
                gsu_msgbox "$(lsscsi)"
        }

        lsi_df()
        {
                gsu_msgbox "$(df -h)"
        }

        lsi_mdstat()
        {
                gsu_msgbox "$(cat /proc/mdstat)"
        }

        lsi_dmesg()
        {
                local tmp="$(mktemp)" || exit 1

                trap "rm -f $tmp" EXIT
                dmesg > $tmp
                gsu_textbox "$tmp"
        }

        lsi_syslog()
        {
                gsu_textbox '/var/log/syslog'
        }

        . /usr/local/lib/gsu/gui || exit 1
        gsu_gui "$menu_tree"

The config module
-----------------
Some applications need config options which are not related to
any particular subcommand, like the URL of a web service, the path
to some data directory, or a default value which is to be used by
several subcommands. Such options do not change frequently and are
hence better stored in a configuration file rather than passed to
every subcommand that needs the information.

The config module of gsu makes it easy to maintain such options and
performs routine tasks like reading and checking the values given in
the config file, or printing out the current configuration. It can
be used stand-alone, or in combination with either the subcommand or
the gui module.

Defining config options
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
To use the config module, you must define the $gsu_options bash array.
Each config option is represented by one slot in this array. Here is
an example which defines two options:

 gsu_options=(
 "
        name=fs_type
        option_type=string
        default_value=ext3
        required=false
        description='file system type to consider'
        help_text='
                This option is used in various contexts. All
                subcommands which need a file system type
                use the value specified here as the default.
        '
 "
 "
        name=limit
        option_type=num
        default_value=3
        required=no
        description='print at most this many lines of output'
 "
 )

Each config option consists of the following fields:

 - *name*. This must be a valid bash variable name. Hence no special
 characters are allowed.

 - *option_type*. Only `string' and `num' are supported but additional
 types might be supported in future versions. While string variables
 may have arbitrary content, only integers are accepted for variables
 of type `num'.

 - *default_value*. The value to use if the option was not specified.

 - *required*. Whether gsu considers it an error if the option was
 not specified. It does not make sense to set this to `true' and set
 *default_value* at the same time.

 - *description*. Short description of the variable. It is printed by
 the `prefs' subcommand.

 - *help_text*. Optional long description, also printed by `prefs'.

To enable the config module you must source the config module of gsu
after $gsu_options has been defined:

        . /usr/local/lib/gsu/config || exit 1

Passing config options to the application
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
There are two ways to pass the value of an option to a gsu application:
environment variable and config file. The default config file is
~/.$gsu_name.rc where $gsu_name is the basename of the application,
but this can be changed by setting $gsu_config_file. Thus, the
following two statements are equivalent

        fs_type=xfs hello fs
        echo 'fs_type=xfs' > ~/.hello.rc && hello fs

If an option is set both in the environment and in the config file,
the environment takes precedence.

Checking config options
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
The gsu config module defines two public functions for this purpose:
gsu_check_options() and gsu_check_options_or_die(). The latter function
exits on errors while the former function only sets $ret and $result
as appropriate and lets the application deal with the error. The best
place to call one of these functions is after sourcing the config
module but before calling gsu() or gsu_gui().

Using config values
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
The name of an option as specified in $gsu_options (`fs_type' in
the example above) is what users of your application may specify at
the command line or in the config file. This leads to a mistake that
is easy to make and difficult to debug: The application might use a
variable name which is also a config option.

To reduce the chance for this to happen, gsu_check_options() creates
a different set of variables for the application where each variable
is prefixed with ${gsu_name}. For example, if $gsu_options as above
is part of the hello script, $hello_fs_type and $hello_limit are
defined after gsu_check_options() returned successfully. Only the
prefixed variants are guaranteed to contain the proper value, so this
variable should be used exclusively in the application. The
prefix may be changed by setting $gsu_config_var_prefix before calling
gsu_check_options().

com_prefs()
~~~~~~~~~~~
For scripts which source both the subcommand and the config module, the
auto-generated 'prefs' subcommand prints out the current configuration
and exits. The description and help text of the option as specified
in the `description' and `help_text' fields of $gsu_options are shown
as comments in the output. Hence this output can be used as a template
for the config file.

List of public variables
------------------------
  - *$gsu_dir*. Where gsu is installed. If unset, gsu guesses
  its installation directory by examining the $BASH_SOURCE array.

  - *$gsu_name*. The name of the application. Defaults to $0 with
  all leading directories removed.

  - *$gsu_banner_txt*. Used by both the subcommand and the gui
  module. It is printed by the man subcommand, and as the title for
  dialog windows.

  - *$gsu_errors*. Identifier/text pairs for custom error reporting.

  - *$gsu_config_file*. The name of the config file of the application.
  Defaults to `~/.${gsu_name}.rc'.

  - *$gsu_options*.

  - *$gsu_config_var_prefix*. Used by the config module to set up
  the variables defined in $gsu_options.

License
-------
gsu is licensed under the  GNU LESSER GENERAL PUBLIC LICENSE (LGPL), version 3.
See COPYING and COPYING.LESSER.

Contact
-------
Send beer, pizza, patches, improvements, bug reports, flames,
(in this order), to Andre Noll `<maan@tuebingen.mpg.de>'.

References
----------
 - http://www.gnu.org/software/bash/bash.html (bash)
 - http://www.invisible-island.net/dialog/dialog.html (dialog)
 - http://triptico.com/software/grutatxt.html (grutatxt)