Writing scripts for UNIX-like operating systems

[Jackalope]

Have you tried heating it to a cherry-red colour and then beating it with a hammer?

Boru

I can't say that works on unix scripts, but it does work on people.

[FlatAssembler]

I barely managed to get the NodeJS version check to work on Git Bash on Windows. Before NodeJS outputted the error message "stdout is not a tty" instead of outputting the version number. Here is what the shell script to use the AEC-to-WebAssembly compiler looks like now:

Code:

if [ $(command -v git > /dev/null 2>&1 ; echo $?) -eq 0 ]
then
  git clone https://github.com/FlatAssembler/AECforWebAssembly.git
  cd AECforWebAssembly
elif [ $(command -v wget > /dev/null 2>&1 ; echo $?) -eq 0 ]
then
  mkdir AECforWebAssembly
  cd AECforWebAssembly
  wget https://github.com/FlatAssembler/AECforWebAssembly/archive/refs/heads/master.zip
  unzip master.zip
  cd AECforWebAssembly-master
else
  mkdir AECforWebAssembly
  cd AECforWebAssembly
  curl -o AECforWebAssembly.zip -L https://github.com/FlatAssembler/AECforWebAssembly/archive/refs/heads/master.zip # Without the "-L", "curl" will store HTTP Response headers of redirects to the ZIP file instead of the actual ZIP file.
  unzip AECforWebAssembly.zip
  cd AECforWebAssembly-master
fi
if [ $(command -v g++ > /dev/null 2>&1 ; echo $?) -eq 0 ]
then
  g++ -std=c++11 -o aec AECforWebAssembly.cpp # "-std=c++11" should not be necessary for newer versions of "g++". Let me know if it is, as that probably means I disobeyed some new C++ standard (say, C++23).
else
  clang++ -o aec AECforWebAssembly.cpp
fi
cd analogClock
../aec analogClock.aec
npx -p wabt wat2wasm analogClock.wat
if [ "$OS" = "Windows_NT" ] # https://stackoverflow.com/a/75125384/8902065
                            # https://www.reddit.com/r/bash/comments/10cip05/comment/j4h9f0x/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web2x&context=3
then
  node_version=$(node.exe -v)
else # We are presumably running on an UNIX-like system, where storing output of some program into a variable works as expected.
  node_version=$(node -v)
fi
# "node -v" outputs version in the format "v18.12.1"
node_version=${node_version:1} # Remove 'v' at the beginning
node_version=${node_version%\.*} # Remove trailing ".*".
node_version=${node_version%\.*} # Remove trailing ".*".
node_version=$(($node_version)) # Convert the NodeJS version number from a string to an integer.
if [ $node_version -lt 11 ]
then
  echo "NodeJS version is lower than 11 (it is $node_version), you will probably run into trouble!"
fi
node analogClock

You can see the latest version on my blog.

[FlatAssembler]

I have modified the shell script to compile Analog Clock for x86, so that it might be able to run on Windows. Here is what it looks like now:

Code:

mkdir ArithmeticExpressionCompiler
cd ArithmeticExpressionCompiler
if [ $(command -v wget > /dev/null 2>&1 ; echo $?) -eq 0 ] # Check if "wget" exists, see those StackOverflow answers for more details:
                                                                                         # https://stackoverflow.com/a/75103891/8902065
                                                                                         # https://stackoverflow.com/a/75103209/8902065
then
  wget https://flatassembler.github.io/Duktape.zip
else
  curl -o Duktape.zip https://flatassembler.github.io/Duktape.zip
fi
unzip Duktape.zip
if [ $(command -v clang > /dev/null 2>&1 ; echo $?) -eq 0 ] # We prefer "clang" to "gcc" because... what if somebody tries to run this in CygWin terminal? GCC will not work then, CLANG might.
then
  c_compiler="clang"
else
  c_compiler="gcc"
fi
$c_compiler -o aec aec.c duktape.c -lm # The linker that comes with recent versions of Debian Linux insists that "-lm" is put AFTER the source files, or else it outputs some confusing error message.
if [ "$OS" = "Windows_NT" ]
then
  ./aec analogClockForWindows.aec
  $c_compiler -o analogClockForWindows analogClockForWindows.s -m32
  ./analogClockForWindows
else
  ./aec analogClock.aec
  $c_compiler -o analogClock analogClock.s -m32
  ./analogClock
fi

[FlatAssembler]

Well, I guess the shell scripts are good enough to be added to READMEs (https://github.com/FlatAssembler/Arithme...ler#readme https://github.com/FlatAssembler/AECforW...ell-script), Arithmetic Expression Compiler web-page (https://flatassembler.github.io/compiler.html) and the Analog Clock example on the web (https://flatassembler.github.io/analogClock). Now they are difficult to change.

[FlatAssembler]

Writing shell scripts has left a very bad impression on me. I have written two short scripts, and I have had to ask no less than three StackOverflow questions (Fortunately, none of them reduced my reputation, and one of them received two upvotes.). One would think that checking whether a program with some name is available is one of the most common things one would like to do in a shell script. Nonetheless, doing that is very complicated. And two times in two short scripts, I had to rely on truly mysterious fixes. I've written a rant about it on my blog:

Administrator Notice
Removed blog rant, per Rule 1, bullet point 3. Do NOT do this again.

Boru

[FlatAssembler]

So, is it just me, or is shell scripting one of the most frustrating kinds of programming, way more frustrating than front-end development?

[Angrboda]

It's just you.

[BrianSoddingBoru4]

So, is it just me, or is shell scripting one of the most frustrating kinds of programming, way more frustrating than front-end development?

People are generally frustrated by things they’re not good at.

Boru

[FlatAssembler]

It's just you.

Have you tried writing shell scripts?

[FlatAssembler]

So, is it just me, or is shell scripting one of the most frustrating kinds of programming, way more frustrating than front-end development?

People are generally frustrated by things they’re not good at.

Boru

I don't remember being nearly as frustrated when making my PacMan in JavaScript or my website. Sure, I ran into a problem that "clientWidth" and "clientHeight" didn't work on SVG elements in Firefox, but I immediately thought of a simple work-around.