Bash Script Generator

Generates a Bash Script Template that handles Arguments and Flags Cleanly.

This GitHub Repository is released under the GNU v3 License, so hack away as long as you keep it open-source. To access the generator script directly, a convenient short link is provided: bit.ly/gen-bash-script.

Authored by: Mad Robot

Features

The following features are supported:

• Single dash and double dash options (-d OR --date)
• Boolean options (-p without a value)
• Compounded options (-dpi translates to -d, -p and -i)
• Multiple options exported in arrays (--date foo1 -d foo2 --date foo3 exports to "foo1", "foo2", "foo3")
• Catch-all Method
• Custom Methods
• Parsed options are exported into EXPORTS
• Parsed option values are exported to OPTS_<varname>
• Parsed arguments are exported into ARGS also passed to custom methods as ${@}
• Autocompletion enabled with a generator method

Running the Generator

To run the generator you simply execute the command below from your terminal:

curl -Ls http://bit.ly/gen-bash-script | bash > ScriptFilename.sh

Or to customize your generated script, execute this command instead:

curl -Ls http://bit.ly/gen-bash-script | bash -s -- -n ScriptName -v ScriptVer -c yes > ScriptFilename.sh

The generator script has the following options:

• -n|--name for Script Name
• -v|--version for Script Version
• -c|--catch-all for Catch All toggle

The output will be directed to stdout so you can easily forward the output to a file stream.

Configuring the Generated Template

There will be a few options for you to configure the generated template, below is the reference:

Script Name

SCRIPT_NAME

Displayed in the Help Message and Version Message.

Script Version

SCRIPT_VER

Displayed in the Version Message.

Script Options

SCRIPT_OPTS

This is where you will configure the script options/flags. This is provided by a compounded array SCRIPT_OPTS, where each array value contains the matching pattern and the variable name under which the provided value will be exported.

Options Format:

The SCRIPT_OPTS is an array who's values are as follows: <regex>:<varname>

The first part before the colon is a standard Regex to match against the given options, i.e. (-d|--date) will match either -d or --date — you can append as many patterns as you want using the OR operator | and all of the patterns will be matched and mapped to the <varname>.

The second part after the colon is the key used as the variable name. This name will be exported as OPTS_<varname>, i.e. OPTS_DATE in the case of a date option.

A complete example of this: (-d|--date):DATE

Remember: Arrays in Bash are delimited with a space, i.e. ARRAY=("foo" "bar" "baz")

Important: Options that are provided as boolean flag, i.e. no value is provided other than the flag itself, will be exported with the value of variable name. For example OPTS_PUBLISH will have the value "OPTS_PUBLISH", this will let you know when you're provided true vs the boolean flag alone.

Script Catch All

SCRIPT_CATCHALL

This will enable/disable the catch all method. Normally, you'd have to specify a script method, i.e. script [options] operation [args] but you may also want to skip the operation and simply execute script [options] [args] in which case you'd enable the Catch-All Option.

This will only accept yes or no for a value, otherwise, it defaults to disabling the Catch-All Method.

Script Autocompletion

This script is equipped with an autocomplete helper method. Simply execute <scriptname> generate-autocomplete to generate an autocomplete script. This utilizes the <scriptname> methods method to get a dynamic list of all available methods/operations, this is done automatically and will update the list of methods as you add more method definitions.

Sourcing the Autocomplete Script

For the autocomplete to function, you will need to source it into your bash session, best place to do this is in your ~/.profile by simply including source path/to/autocomplete/script and restarting your bash session. You may also include it in /etc/profile to provide it to all users, although not recommended unless you know what you're doing.

Notice: For autocompletion to operate properly, you MUST NOT start your method names with an underscore (_) as they're considered internal methods and will be omitted from method list.

License and Disclaimer

This software is provided as-is and no warranties or guaranties are provided by the author. Use at your own risk. Distributed under the GNU v3 Open Source License.