pure bash

A [WIP] collection of pure bash alternatives to external processes.

The goal of this repository is to document known and unknown methods of doing various tasks using only built-in bash features. Using the snippets from this guide can help to remove unneeded dependencies from your scripts and in most cases make them that little bit faster. I came across these tips and discovered a few while developing neofetch, pxltrm and some other smaller projects.

This repository is open to contribution. If you see something that is incorrectly described, buggy or outright wrong, open an issue or send a pull request. If you know a handy snippet that is not included in this list, send a pull request!

Table of Contents

• Getting the terminal size (in a script).
• Get the current date using strftime.
• Get the directory name of a file path.
• Convert a hex color to RGB
• Convert an RGB color to hex.
• Trim quotes from a string.
• Get the first N lines in a file.
• Get the last N lines in a file.

Getting the terminal size (in a script).

This is handy when writing scripts in pure bash and stty/tput can’t be called.

get_term_size() {
    # Usage: get_term_size

    # (:;:) is a micro sleep to ensure the variables are
    # exported immediately.
    shopt -s checkwinsize; (:;:)
    printf '%s\n' "$LINES $COLUMNS"
}

Get the current date using strftime.

Bash’s printf has a built-in method of getting the date which we can use in place of the date command in a lot of cases.

NOTE: Requires bash 4+

date() {
    # Usage: date "format"
    # See: 'man strftime' for format.
    printf "%($1)T\\n"
}

Get the directory name of a file path.

Alternative to the dirname command.

dirname() {
    # Usage: dirname "path"
    printf '%s\n' "${1%/*}/"
}

Convert a hex color to RGB

hex_to_rgb() {
    # Usage: hex_to_rgb "#FFFFFF"
    ((r=16#${1:1:2}))
    ((g=16#${1:3:2}))
    ((b=16#${1:5:6}))

    printf '%s\n' "$r $g $b"
}

Convert an RGB color to hex.

rgb_to_hex() {
    # Usage: rgb_to_hex "r" "g" "b"
    printf '#%02x%02x%02x\n' "$1" "$2" "$3"
}

Trim quotes from a string.

trim_quotes() {
    # Usage: trim_quotes "string"
    : "${1//\'}"
    printf "%s\\n" "${_//\"}"
}

Get the first N lines in a file.

Alternative to the head command.

NOTE: Requires bash 4+

head() {
    # Usage: head "n" "file"
    mapfile -tn "$1" line < "$2"
    printf '%s\n' "${line[@]}"
}

Get the last N lines in a file.

Alternative to the tail command.

NOTE: Requires bash 4+

tail() {
    # Usage: tail "n" "file"
    mapfile -tn 0 line < "$2"
    printf '%s\n' "${line[@]: -$1}"
}