CODEWITHSUNDEEP
bashshellscripting
snorberhuis
snorberhuis

Reputation: 3296

Script continues if error occurs in && and set -e is used

If in a script I use set -e the script continues after an error has occurred in a statement that executes two commands with &&.

For example:

set -e

cd nonexistingdirectory && echo "&&"
echo continue

This gives the following output:

./exit.sh: line 3: cd: nonexistingdirectory: No such file or directory
continue

I want the script to exit after cd nonexistingdirectory and stop.

How can I do this?

** Edit** I have multiple scripts using && that I need to fix to make sure they exit upon error. But I want a minimum impact/risk solution. I will try the solution mentioned in the comments to replace && with ; combined with set -e.

Upvotes: 2

Views: 2071

Answers (2)

Valentino Di domenico
Valentino Di domenico

Reputation: 66

The problem here is your && command.

In fact, when a command that retrieves error is executed together (&&) with another command, the set -e doesn't work.

If you explain better the real use case we could find out a work around that fits your needs.

set [+abefhkmnptuvxBCEHPT] [+o option] [arg ...]

-e Exit immediately if a pipeline (which may consist of a single simple command), a subshell command enclosed in parentheses, or one of the commands executed as part of a command list enclosed by braces (see SHELL GRAMMAR above) exits with a non-zero status. The shell does not exit if the command that fails is part of the command list immediately following a while or until keyword, part of the test following the if or elif reserved words, part of any command executed in a && or || list except the command fol- lowing the final && or ||, any command in a pipeline but the last, or if the command's return value is being inverted with !.

from man bash

Upvotes: 5

melpomene
melpomene

Reputation: 85887

This is by design. If you use &&, bash assumes you want to handle errors yourself, so it doesn't abort on failure in the first command.

Possible fix:

set -e

cd nonexistingdirectory
echo "&&"
echo continue

Now there are only two possibilities:

  1. cd succeeds and the script continues as usual.
  2. cd fails and bash aborts execution because of set -e.

Upvotes: 4

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