scripts

A modular bash utility library: ANSI helpers, logging, IO, networking, GPG automation, and a yq-backed YAML toolkit with a template engine (${placeholders}, defaults, and $<evaluated expressions>).

Requirements

• bash >= 4.4 (namerefs, mapfile -d) — every module fails fast with a clear message on older shells. On macOS use brew install bash; stock /bin/bash 3.2 is not supported.
• perl >= 5.26 (template tokenizer) and, for the YAML toolkit, yq (mikefarah, v4) and jq.
• curl for download_absent_file / get_ip; gpg only for gpg.sh.

Install

git clone https://github.com/azevio/scripts.git
# or, with bpkg:
bpkg install azevio/scripts

Usage

Source the umbrella entry point, or any module on its own — modules source their own dependencies and are idempotent under repeated sourcing:

source /path/to/scripts/scripts.sh   # everything (defines SCRIPTS_VERSION)
source /path/to/scripts/string.sh    # just the string/template module

Runnable examples live in examples/ and are executed as part of the test suite:

examples/render-config.sh    # config decoding with imports + placeholders
examples/greet-template.sh   # inline template against the environment

Modules

Module	Provides
ansi.sh	ansi_span — print spans with automatic ANSI reset
time.sh	timestamp — fork-free YYYY-MM-DD HH:MM:SS
log.sh	info / warn / error / check (stderr, VERBOSE/COLOR aware)
env.sh	os_name, arch_name, ensure_cmd, bash_env, bash_c
array.sh	join_to_string
io.sh	src, clipboard, file_hash_sha256, download_absent_file, user_input
string.sh	trim*, escape, halve, match_at, match_groups_at, substitute_string
net.sh	get_ip, hosts_set
gpg.sh	key generation, listings, secret export, keyserver publish
serializer.sh	the YAML/JSON toolkit (get, assign, merge, …) and substitute / decode_file

Template language

substitute_string (strings) and substitute / decode_file (YAML/JSON documents) share one grammar; templates may contain any UTF-8 text:

Syntax	Meaning
${key}	interpolate a value; nested paths as ${a.b}, indexes as ${a.[0]}, quoted keys as ${"a b"}
${KEY-default}	default value when the key is unset (mirrors ${VAR-default})
$key.path	unbraced form (opt-in via -i true); keys chain only through dots followed by another key
$<command>	evaluate through bash (bash_c: set -euo pipefail); quotes protect < and >; $<var a.b> reads values inside evaluated expressions
$$	escaped dollar; runs are halved unless -ud false

Options (both functions): -i/--interpolate, -ib/--interpolate-braced, -e/--evaluate, -ud/--unescape-dollars, each taking an explicit true/false value.

Getter protocol. substitute_string [opts] [getter] [evaluator] [cache] [source] calls the getter with the name of an array holding the key path. Status codes: 0 = resolved (stdout is the value), 101/NO_SUCH_ELEMENT = keep the raw placeholder (propagated as the final exit status), 100/DEEP_RESOLVE = the returned value itself must be substituted recursively (depth-capped by SUBSTITUTE_MAX_DEPTH, default 32). Any other status aborts. The default getter is bash_env (environment lookups), the default evaluator bash_c.

decode_file renders a document after recursively merging its imports: (relative to each file), deduplicating shared imports, and detecting cycles; the import tree is drawn on stderr.

Substituted values are handled as raw string content and written back with yq's strenv — so quoted (JSON) and multiline strings substitute safely, a substituted field always stays a string, and interpolating a whole map/array into a string embeds it as YAML text.

Document toolkit

The toolkit is format-agnostic across what yq parses — YAML and JSON in the same functions: yaml_type, is_type, is_bool/is_int/is_float/is_str/ is_scalar/is_seq/is_map/is_object, uncomment, pretty_yaml, pretty_yaml_objects, coalesce, contains, get, get_raw, assign, slice, replace, delete, deletes, merge, plus *_in_file variants, merge_files, substitute, and decode_file. Paths are yq expressions; sources may be a literal string, a file name, or stdin (see src).

Platform support

Platform	Status
Linux	Tested in CI and via make test-linux (pinned Debian container)
macOS	Tested in CI and locally (homebrew bash)
Windows	Via Git Bash or WSL only — tested in CI on windows-latest; the process-heavy template engine is noticeably slower there

Development

make help          # list all targets
make test          # bats suite (tests/*.bats)
make test-linux    # same suite in the pinned Debian container
make check         # fmt-check + shellcheck + tests
make fmt           # shfmt -i 2
make coverage      # informational kcov report into ./coverage (container)
make bench         # time template rendering (ITERATIONS=n)
make hooks         # install .githooks (fmt-check + lint on commit)
make test-network  # include opt-in keyserver tests

Tests are bats-core; one file per module under tests/, shared helpers in tests/helpers/common.bash. Tests are hermetic: gpg uses throwaway keyrings, downloads use file:// fixtures, and network-dependent keyserver tests skip unless RUN_NETWORK_TESTS=1.

Design notes & caveats

• error exits the current shell (by design, it is the library's die); when a function is called inside $(...), only that subshell exits.
• The 101/100 status protocol conflicts with set -e in callers: capture results as out="$(substitute ...)" inside an if/|| context.
• Interpolating a whole map/array into a string embeds it as YAML text (the field stays a string); merge structures via imports:/merge instead.
• The library deliberately uses short unprefixed names (get, merge, substitute, info, src, …). Source it in scripts rather than in interactive shells if that concerns you; only yaml_type deviates, to avoid shadowing the type builtin.

Versioning

Semantic versioning; see CHANGELOG.md. The current version is exposed as SCRIPTS_VERSION by scripts.sh.

License

MIT