Framework Overview

Summary:

Overview of the Bash Tools Framework functions and namespaces

Created on: March 1, 2026

Last updated: March 1, 2026

Articles in this section

Title	Description	Updated
Framework Overview	Overview of the Bash Tools Framework functions and namespaces	2026-03-01

This framework is a collection of several bash functions and commands that helps you to lint files, generate shell documentation, compile bash files, and many more, …

The Bash Tools Framework provides 150+ unit-tested functions organized by namespace. This section provides an overview of the available namespaces and their key functions.

1. Generated Documentation

The complete function reference documentation is automatically generated from source code using shdoc. This documentation includes detailed information about:

Function parameters
Return values
Exit codes
Usage examples
Environment variables

To generate the documentation:

bin/doc

2. Framework Overview

Here an excerpt of the namespaces available in Bash tools framework:

Apt: several functions to abstract the use of ubuntu apt-get function. these functions are using some default arguments and manage retry automatically.
- Linux::Apt::addRepository
- Linux::Apt::install
- Linux::Apt::remove
- Linux::Apt::update
Args: functions to ease some recurrent arguments like -h|–help to display help
Array: functions to ease manipulation of bash arrays like Array::clone or Array::contains that checks if an element is contained in an array
Assert: various checks like
- Assert::expectUser, Assert::expectNonRootUser, Assert::expectRootUser exits with message if current user is not the expected one
- Assert::commandExists checks if command specified exists or exits with error message if not
- Assert::windows determines if the script is executed under windows (git bash, wsl)
- Assert::validPath checks if path provided is a valid linux path, it doesn’t have to exist yet
- Assert::bashFrameworkFunction checks if given name respects naming convention of this framework’s functions
- …
Backup::file, Backup::dir allows to create a backup of a file or a directory in a folder configured in a .env file managed by the framework (see Env::requireLoad)
Aws: Aim is to abstract the use of some aws cli commands, for the moment only Aws::imageExists has been implemented allowing to check that a docker image exists with tags provided on AWS ecr(AWS docker repository)
Bats::installRequirementsIfNeeded allows to install bats vendor requirements for this project, it uses mainly the useful function Git::shallowClone
Cache : various cache methods to provide files or env variable with expiration management
Command::captureOutputAndExitCode calls a command capturing output and exit code and displaying it also to error output to follow command’s progress
Conf : allows to manage the loading of .env file that contains configuration used by some functions of this framework.
Database : abstraction of several mysql queries, like:
- Database::dump dump db limited to optional table list
- Database::query mysql query on a given db
- Database::dropTable drop table if exists
- Database::dropDb drop database if exists
- Database::createDb create database if not already existing
- Database::isTableExists check if table exists on given db
- Database::ifDbExists check if given database exists
- all these methods need to call Database::newInstance in order to reference target db connection
Dns : various methods like Dns::pingHost or allowing etc/hosts manipulation.
Docker : various docker cli abstractions that allowed to construct bin/buildPushDockerImage command.
Env : functions allowing to load env variables or to alter them like Env::pathAppend allowing to add a bin path to PATH variable
File : files and file paths manipulations.
Filters : various functions to filter files using grep, awk or sed eg: Filters::bashFrameworkFunctions allows to find all the bash framework functions used in a file
Git : provides git abstractions like Git::cloneOrPullIfNoChange, Git::pullIfNoChanges or Git::shallowClone
Install : copy directory or file, backup them before if needed.
Github : major feature is install automatically latest binary release using Github::upgradeRelease
Log::display\* output colored message on error output and log the message
- Log::fatal error message in red bold and exits with code 1
- Log::displayError error message in red
- Log::displayWarning warning message in yellow
- Log::displayInfo info message in white on lightBlue
- Log::displaySuccess success message in green
- Log::displayDebug debug message in gray
Log::log\* output message in a log file
- Log::logError
- Log::logWarning
- Log::logInfo
- Log::logSuccess
- Log::logDebug
Log::rotate automatically rotates the log file, this function is used internally by Log::log\* functions.
OS: ubuntu related functions
Profiles: methods mainly used by Bash-dev-env project that allows to indicate scripts list to install with the ability to include all the dependencies recursively. This file src/Profiles/lintDefinitions.sh is the precursor of a first bash interface implementation.
Retry: retry a command on failure easily
ShellDoc: this framework shell documentation generation
Ssh: mainly Ssh::fixAuthenticityOfHostCantBeEstablished
Sudo: executes command as sudo if needed
UI
- UI::askToContinue ask the user if he wishes to continue a process
- UI::askYesNo ask the user a confirmation
- UI::askToIgnoreOverwriteAbort ask the user to ignore(i), overwrite(o) or abort(a)
Version
- Version::checkMinimal ensure that command exists with expected version
- Version::compare compares two versions
Wsl: commands wslvar and wslpath are expensive, avoid multiple calls using cache
src/_standalone regroups methods that do not respect framework naming conventions like assert_lines_count that is used to assert the number of lines of output in bats tests

3. Development Environment

3.1. Precommit hook

This repository uses pre-commit software to ensure every commits respects a set of rules specified by the .pre-commit-config.yaml file. It supposes pre-commit software is installed in your environment.

You also have to execute the following command to enable it:

pre-commit install --hook-type pre-commit --hook-type pre-push

3.2. UT

All the methods of this framework are unit tested, you can run the unit tests using the following command

./test.sh scrasnups/build:bash-tools-ubuntu-5.3 -r src -j 30

Launch UT on different environments:

./test.sh scrasnups/build:bash-tools-ubuntu-4.4 -r src -j 30
./test.sh scrasnups/build:bash-tools-ubuntu-5.0 -r src -j 30
./test.sh scrasnups/build:bash-tools-ubuntu-5.3 -r src -j 30
./test.sh scrasnups/build:bash-tools-alpine-4.4 -r src -j 30
./test.sh scrasnups/build:bash-tools-alpine-5.0 -r src -j 30
./test.sh scrasnups/build:bash-tools-alpine-5.3 -r src -j 30

3.3. Debug bats

use the following command:

vendor/bats/bin/bats -r src/Conf/loadNearestFile.bats --trace --verbose-run --filter "Conf::loadNearestFileFileFoundInDir1"

3.4. connect to container manually

Alpine with bash version 4.4

docker run --rm -it -w /bash -v "$(pwd):/bash" --entrypoint="" --user 1000:1000 bash-tools-alpine-4.4-user bash

Ubuntu with bash version 5.1

docker run --rm -it -w /bash -v "$(pwd):/bash" --entrypoint="" --user 1000:1000 bash-tools-ubuntu-5.1-user bash

3.5. auto generated bash doc

generated by running

bin/doc

3.6. github page

The web page uses Hugo with the Docsy theme to generate a static documentation site.

To preview the website locally, you need to clone my-documents repository

git clone git@github.com:fchastanet/my-documents.git

And run the following command from the root of this repository:

SITE=bash-tools-framework make start-site

Navigate to http://localhost:1313/bash-tools-framework/

4. Troubleshooting

4.1. compile.bats embed not working on alpine investigation

exit code 127 is returned but process seems to go until the end. This error only occurs on alpine.

commands to compile and debug:

# run docker alpine interactively
docker run --rm -it -w /bash -v "$(pwd):/bash" --entrypoint="" --user 1000:1000 build:bash-tools-alpine-4.4-user bash

# launch bats test that fails
vendor/bats/bin/bats -r src/_binaries/compile.bats --filter embed

# launch directly compile command that returns the same exit code
bin/compile src/_binaries/testsData/bin/embed.sh --template-dir src --bin-dir bin --root-dir $PWD --src-dir src/_binaries/testsData/src
echo $? # prints 127

# try to get more logs
KEEP_TEMP_FILES=1 BASH_FRAMEWORK_DISPLAY_LEVEL=4 bin/compile \
  src/_binaries/testsData/bin/embed.sh \
  --template-dir src \
  --bin-dir bin \
  --root-dir "${PWD}" \
  --src-dir src/_binaries/testsData/src

# try to use strace
docker run --rm -it \
  -w /bash -v "$(pwd):/bash" \
  --entrypoint="" \
  build:bash-tools-alpine-4.4-user bash
apk update
apk add strace

Strace didn’t helped me a lot. But as I added recently this option shopt -u lastpipe, I removed it from compile binary and the issue disappeared.

As I was suspecting the while piped inside Compiler::Embed::inject. I added the following code in this function to remove the tracing just after the error occurs:

trap 'set +x' EXIT
set -x

It allows me to find that the last command executed was read -r line.

Finally I understand that the issue comes when read -r line exits with code 1 because of end of file.

previous simplified code:

cat file | {
  local line
  while IFS="" read -r line; do
    # ...
  done
}

Resulting in exit code 127 because of pipe and shopt -u lastpipe.

Fixed code is to remove error if :

cat file | {
  local line
  while true; do
    local status=0
    IFS="" read -r line || status=$?
    if [[ "${status}" = "1" ]]; then
      # end of file
      return 0
    elif [[ "${status}" != "0" ]]; then
      # other error
      return "${status}"
    fi
    # ...
  done
}

5. External Resources

For comprehensive guides on Bash best practices, please refer to these documents:

General Bash Best Practices - Core Bash scripting practices
Linux Commands Best Practices - Effective Linux command usage
Bats Best Practices - Testing best practices with Bats

This framework is part of a suite of projects: