L_lib.sh

Labrador Bash library. Collection of functions and libraries that I deem useful for working with Bash.

• Documentation
• Installation
• Features
• Conventions
• License

Installation

The library is one file. Download the latest release from GitHub and put in your PATH:

mkdir -vp ~/.local/bin/
curl -o ~/.local/bin/L_lib.sh https://raw.githubusercontent.com/Kamilcuk/L_lib/refs/heads/v1/bin/L_lib.sh
export PATH=~/.local/bin:$PATH

You can use the library in scripts with:

. L_lib.sh -s

Unless -n, sourcing the library will enable extglob and patsub_replacement and, if set -e is set, register a ERR trap that will print a nice traceback on unhandled error.

You can test the library ad-hoc:

bash <(curl -sS https://raw.githubusercontent.com/Kamilcuk/L_lib/refs/heads/v1/bin/L_lib.sh) L_setx L_log 'Hello world'

Features

Below is some list with some of the library features. The library contains much more.

• Argument parsing in Bash with short, long options, sub-parsers, sub-functions support and shell completion L_argparse
• Logging library with levels and configurable output and filtering L_log_configure L_info L_logrun L_run
• Pretty function stack printing usually on ERR trap L_print_traceback
• Execute an action on EXIT, any terminating signal or RETURN trap of any function L_finally
• Create temporary directory and cd to it for the duration of a function with auto removal after return L_with_cd L_with_cd_tmpdir
• Create unidirectional connected two file descriptors L_pipe
• Create and manage multiple processes with separate file descriptors for standard input and standard output L_proc_popen L_proc_communicate L_proc_kill
• Temporary enable or disable shell features set -x for the duration of a command L_setx L_unsetx L_extglob
• Easily sort a Bash arrays containing any characters L_sort
• failure handling utilities L_assert L_die L_check L_panic
• Variables holding color codes depending on terminal support L_color_detect $L_RED $L_BLUE
• checking Bash features and version $L_BASH_VERSION $L_HAS_BASH4_0 $L_HAS_COMPGEN_V $L_HAS_WAIT_N
• Waiting on multiple PIDs with a timeout ignoring signals and collecting all exit codes L_wait
• Simplify storing exit status of a command into a variable L_exit_to L_exit_to_10
• help with path operations, with PATH or PYTHONPATH manipulation L_path_stem L_dir_is_empty L_path_append L_path_relative_to
• string utilities L_strip L_strupper L_strstr L_html_escape L_urlencode
• Split string without remote execution and understand $'' sequences L_str_split
• Template output L_percent_format L_fstring
• JSON escape L_json_escape
• Cache commands execution with TTL in memory or file L_cache L_cache_decorate
• Easy writing function utilities by supporting -v <var> option or extracting comment before function L_handle_v_scalar L_func_help L_func_usage_error L_decorate
• All with support for any Bash versions from 3.2 to latest with portability functions L_readarray L_epochrealtime_usec L_compgen -V

Talk to me

Kindly feel free to have conversations and ask questions on GitHub discussion.

Report bugs using GitHub issue.

Conventions

• L_* prefix for public symbols.
• _L_* prefix for private symbols, including local variables in functions taking a name-reference.
• Upper case used for global scope read-only variables.
• Lower case used for functions and user mutable variables
• Snake case for everything.
• The option -v <var> is used to store the result in a variable instead of printing it.
  • This follows the convention of printf -v <var>.
  • Without the -v option, the function outputs the elements on lines to standard output.
  • Associated function with _v suffix store the result in a hardcoded scratch variable L_v.
• return 2 on usage error, return 124 on timeout

License

LGPL