bash #

Move to script directory #

Sometimes you write a script that assumes that it executes from the directory that is stored in .. at least I do. Here’s a handy line to put at the top of your script:

cd "$(dirname "${BASH_SOURCE[0]}")"

Check if a variable is defined #

The simplest approach of using if [[ -n $var ]]; then .. cannot detect if the variable has been defined but is assigned an empty value.

If this distinction is important, e.g. when writing user-facing commandline scripts you can use the ${var+defined} expansion. For example:

Check if a variable is defined:

if [[ -n ${var+defined} ]]; then
  # do something with $var
fi

When the variable is defined, the variable will expand to defined and the not empty test will succeed.

Error if argument was not given:

if [[ -z ${1+undefined} ]]; then
  echo "error, argument required" >&2
fi

Whenever the variable is defined, it will expand to undefined which will fail the is empty test – only when it is not defined will this test succeed.