RE: Bash4: Problem retrieving "$?" when running with "-e"

[Lenga, Yair]

Chet,

Sorry again for pulling the wrong Bash 4 doc. 

Based on the input, I'm assuming that the portable way (bash 3, bash 4 and 
POSIX) to retrieve $? When running under "-e" is to use the PIPE

CMD_STAT=0 ; GET_MAIN_DATA || CMD_STAT=$?
If [ "$CMD_STAT" = 11 ] ; then
        GET_BACKUP_DATA
Fi

Any other suggestion for portable code will be appreciated.

Yair.

-----Original Message-----
From: Chet Ramey [mailto:chet.ramey@case.edu] 
Sent: Friday, April 12, 2013 11:16 AM
To: Lenga, Yair [ICG-MKTS]
Cc: 'bug-bash@gnu.org'; chet.ramey@case.edu
Subject: Re: Bash4: Problem retrieving "$?" when running with "-e"

On 4/12/13 7:44 AM, Lenga, Yair wrote:

> The man page says that '-e' will "exit immediately if a simple command (note 
> Simple Command::) exits with non-zero status unless ...".
> The "simple commands" definition is a "sequence of words separate by blanks 
> ...". According to this definition, the sequence "( simple command )" 
> Is NOT a simple command, and should NOT  trigger the "immediate exit".
> 
> Can anyone comment on my interpretation. Is there alternative solution 
> that will allow retrieval of the status of single commands when running With 
> the '-e' ?

You appear to be using bash-4.x and reading the bash-3.x manual page.

The bash-4.0 man page says

Exit immediately if a \fIpipeline\fP (which may consist of a single \fIsimple 
command\fP),  a \fIsubshell\fP command enclosed in parentheses, or one of the 
commands executed as part of a command list enclosed by braces (see .SM .B 
SHELL GRAMMAR
above) exits with a non-zero status.

The same language is in the man page through bash-4.2.

There has been extensive discussion of the changes to -e between bash-3.2 and 
bash-4.0, which brought bash closer to Posix.  Bash wasn't totally 
Posix-conformant until bash-4.2.

See http://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/bug-bash/2012-12/msg00102.html for a 
summary.

Chet
--
``The lyf so short, the craft so long to lerne.'' - Chaucer
                 ``Ars longa, vita brevis'' - Hippocrates
Chet Ramey, ITS, CWRU    chet@case.edu    http://cnswww.cns.cwru.edu/~chet/