Capturing bash execution errors

Question

I want my bash scripts to detect execution errors and exit.

For the longest time I've been using the try/yell/die approach as seen here.

yell() { echo "$0: $*" >&2; }
die() { echo -e "\e[31m$*\e[0m"; exit 1; }
try() { "$@" || die "cannot $*"; }

However this requires me to wrap my commands line this;

try curl https://blah.com | try bash

It seems the better approach would be to use;

set -e
set -o pipefail
set -E

Are there any downsides to using the set approach, opposed to try/yell/die?

See Why doesn't set -e (or set -o errexit, or trap ERR) do what I expected? for some related discussion. — Tom Fenech
– Tom Fenech, Commented Jun 20, 2016 at 9:38
Thanks for the link @TomFenech, this should be an answer imho! — SleepyCal
– SleepyCal, Commented Jun 20, 2016 at 9:57

Armali · Accepted Answer · 2020-06-20 09:12:55Z

1

community wiki

Sign up to request clarification or add additional context in comments.

Comments

Richard A Quadling · Accepted Answer · 2019-07-26 17:16:29Z

1

FYI:

I use ...

#!/usr/bin/env bash

shout() { echo "$0: $*" >&2; }
die() { shout "${@:2} ($1)"; exit $1; }
try() { "$@" || die $? "cannot $*"; }

2 minor differences:

The exit code we eventually receive is the one that was generated by the command being tried.
The shout includes the exit code after the command in (, ).

answered Jul 26, 2019 at 17:16

4,0472 gold badges33 silver badges40 bronze badges