Shell exit on Error

[1] A little madness
[2] Fvue.nl WiKi

Bash Tip: Exit on Error

Back in my post Your Next Programming Language I mentioned I would post occassional tips about bash scripting. As soon as I started writing my next script, it occured to me: the first thing I always do when writing a new bash script is set the errexit option:

set -e

This option makes your script bail out when it detects an error (a command exiting with a non-zero exit code). Without this option the script will plough on, and mayhem often ensues. In all the noise generated it can be a pain to found the root cause of the problem. So I make it a rule to set this option and fail as early as possible.


[2]
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Exit on error

Bash can be told to exit immediately if a command fails. From the bash manual ("set -e"):

"Exit immediately if a simple command (see SHELL GRAMMAR above) exits with a non-zero status. The shell does not exit if the command that fails is part of the command list immediately following a while or until keyword, part of the test in an if statement, part of a && or || list, or if the command's return value is being inverted via !. A trap on ERR, if set, is executed before the shell exits."

To let bash exit on error, different notations can be used:

Specify `bash -e' as shebang interpreter
Start shell script with `bash -e'
Use `set -e' in shell script
Use `set -o errexit' in shell script
Use `trap exit ERR' in shell script

Specify `bash -e' as the shebang interpreter