Bash scripts are brittle – simple error handling in bash

3 months ago

Bash scripts are commonly used as system glue in CI/CD pipelines or CronJobs.
Default behavior in bash is to continue executing commands even if one fails, unlike other programming languages.
The `-e` option in bash can be used to exit immediately if a command fails.
Exit codes in bash: 0 means success, any other number indicates an error.
Error handling techniques include `if else` statements, logical operators (`&&`, `||`), and the `trap` command.
Pipes (`|`) in bash can hide command failures unless `pipefail` is enabled.
Undefined variables can cause issues; use `-u` to treat unset variables as errors.
Combining options like `set -eEuo pipefail` provides robust error handling.
Alerting on errors is crucial, especially for cron jobs, using tools like Slack webhooks or Notifox CLI.

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