Recent Articles - Shell

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.


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.


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.


Reliably Finding Files in $PATH

Aug 27, 2021 · 4 min read

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


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.


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.