Re-installing Linux O.S. and then running bunch of commands in a .sh script , how to stop the script if something fails?

Question

If i copy and paste all the commands into the terminal.. some do not even go through.

so the solution is perhaps to turn the file into an executable file and then execute it.

but what if some commands fail.

the script keeps on executing the other commands.

obviously there is no solution to this right ?

Answer 1

The easiest way to do this is to use the -e option in your shell. For example:

#!/bin/sh -e

command1
command2

In this script, if command1 fails, then the script as a whole will fail at that point without running any further commands.

Answer 2

You can check the error code from commands you run

#!/bin/bash

function test {
    "$@"
    status=$?
    if [ $status -ne 0 ]; then
        echo "error with $1"
        exit 255
    fi
    return $status
}

test ls
test ps -ef
test not_a_command

taken from here for more information Checking Bash exit status of several commands efficiently

Answer 3

@Terminal, you were almost there.
If you just stick && on the end of each command, then execution will stop with the first failure (ie. the first command that returns a non-zero exit code).
Example:

     #!/bin/sh
     true &&  
     echo 'got here' &&  
     echo 'got here too' &&  
     false &&  
     echo 'also got here'

produces the output

     got here  
     got here too

(Actually, I thought it would also require line-continuation markers too: && \, but a quick test showed otherwise.)
Note: All of the above assumes that your shell is bash; I can't speak for other shells.