libbash: bashing for the masses

Ever have been in a situation in bash where...

• You need starred password input?
• Need microtime, nanotime or millitime?
• Need to convert timestamps to dates?
• Need an easy way to make output colorful?
• Need a standard way to create sequence scripts?

... then libbash is for you.

And never forget that Bash cures cancer

So, what does it do?

libbash has a few files containing helper functions:

• bashr.sh : A quick-and-dirty bash framework for creating and nicely displaying sequencial process (builds, bootstraps, etc). See example.sh for more details
• colorize.sh : echo "I feel blue" | red | bold
• date.sh : Deals with time-based issues
• query.sh : query $(echo "I feel blue. How do you feel?" | red | bold)
• spinner.sh : Attach a spinner to a given process, and dies out when the process disappears. See example.sh for more options.
• memcached.sh : Gives access to utility functions for interacting with Memcached/Membase.

Sounds great. How do I use thoses?

In your script

. /usr/lib/bash/colorize.sh

You can put this in any bash script you want, and bam, coloring pipes available. You can also decide to import this in your .bashrc and use them as user command in your shell.

Example, you could do this:

mbGet some_memcached_key | sed '1 d;$ d' | tee dump | grey | less -R

... ok, not super useful. But you get the point, and hopefully, you will see the potential I see in this.

But what about the other libbash?

Looks dead to me, so i though I could use the name. If the name is confusing, I have nothing against changing it.

Up next

• Parsers for JSON, XML, and other (if anyone is up for it!)
• Some bugfixes.
• Bash networking library.
• Basic HTTP request manager.

Installation

1. git clone https://github.com/Wizcorp/libbash.git /usr/lib/bash

NOTE: You can choose a revision by loading a specific tag. See the list here on GitHub

Collaborators

• stelcheck