While I was enjoying all the down time (Kitties Ho!), I reasoned that it was probably best not to end up waiting half an hour every time I run my scripts, especially when I want to just test some small change in logic. I consulted our resident bash expert and he handed me this gem.
function run() {
echo "$@"
if [[ ! $DRY_RUN == true ]]; then
"$@"
fi
}
Drop this in your scripts and prepend any commands you want to execute conditionally with ‘run’, e.g.:
dry_runner.sh
function run() {
echo "$@"
if [[ ! $DRY_RUN == true ]]; then
"$@"
fi
}
run echo "this is awesome!"
At the command line:
$ DRY_RUN=true ./dry_runner.sh echo this is awesome! $ ./dry_runner.sh echo this is awesome! this is awesome!
If you run it with DRY_RUN set to true it only echos out what it would do. Otherwise it both echos and executes the command.