Recent Articles - Shell

Reliably Detecting Command Existence in Bash

Dec 7, 2024 · 4 min read

You'll find quite a few different methods suggested on the internet, and they all have their own problems.

shell

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Resetting the Working Directory on Shell Script Exit

Mar 5, 2024 · 3 min read

Sometimes you need to change the working directory in a shell script. You should take care to reset it back.

shell

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Automate Your macOS Default Settings

Feb 18, 2024 · 7 min read

You can use built-in CLI tools to apply your preferred macOS settings.

macos shell

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Bash Environment Variable Defaults

Apr 5, 2023 · 3 min read

Bash scripts can set defaults for environment variables that are optionally supplied at execution time.

shell

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Hash a String to a Number in Bash

Mar 5, 2023 · 2 min read

Sometimes you need to turn a stable string ID into a stable number ID, and it's relatively easy to do in Bash.

shell

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Automatically Execute Code Before & After Unix Commands

Jan 19, 2023 · 4 min read

It can be helpful to run some code automatically before or after calling a command, and it is easy to accomplish with shadowing functions.

shell

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Reliably Finding Executables in $PATH

Aug 27, 2021 · 4 min read

Most built-in commands commonly used to find executables in $PATH don't always work quite as expected, or are shell-specific.

shell

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Docker Shell vs. Exec Form

Mar 22, 2021 · 4 min read

The RUN, ENTRYPOINT, and CMD, instructions all have two different forms they can be written in, and those forms change how each of those instructions behaves.

docker shell

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You Don't Need an Init System for Node.js in Docker

Mar 20, 2021 · 5 min read

But you do need to think about how your application handles exit signals.

docker node.js shell