Package management system for shell scripts on Mac OS

command lineterminal

Is there a package system (think npm, cpan, or even homebrew) that would be suitable for shell scripts?

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If you need traditional revision control, you can easily use GitHub even if you don’t know git via their free Mac app. I’ve done that at https://github.com/tjluoma?tab=repositories.

If you just want sharing, put your scripts on Dropbox. For example, I save mine in ~/Dropbox/bin/ which I’ve added to my $PATH so they’re available on all my Macs. View the file on Dropbox.com and choose the share option, then choose ‘Twitter’ to get the short URL like https://db.tt/oOYTUPB4 or the longer one like https://www.dropbox.com/s/8l906xc39uo2cbc/dock.sh

The advantage (or disadvantage, I suppose) of the Dropbox version is that it will always share the most recent version of the script without you having to do any sort of official check-in procedure.

The primary disadvantage of the Dropbox method is that the URL leads to a web page for the script, whereas the direct (or “raw”) version of the script can be located by adding ?dl=1 to the URL, such as https://www.dropbox.com/s/8l906xc39uo2cbc/dock.sh?dl=1

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Porting Linux shell scripts

Short answer: whichever suits you.

If your Unix background is mainly from Linux, you’re probably used to GNU commands. As you’ve noticed, they can be different from other Unix/Unix-based operating systems. Depending on how complex your scripts are, you can either:

make simple changes (like using ls -R . instead of ls . -R), which will work in most (if not all) Unix/Unix-based system and not only on GNU-based ones,
or install the GNU utilities from MacPorts if you think that there’d be too many/complex changes, or if you prefer to stick to the GNU commands you’re already used to.

If you want to take some time and write portable scripts, do it. If you think that’s not worth it, then don’t. Just bear in mind that not every Unix/Unix-based system uses GNU by default.

MacOS – Does Mac OS X’s bash read scripts for all users (tab-completion scripts) from /opt/local/etc/bash_completion.d path

Bash only reads scripts by default in your home directory, or if they are missing in /etc. See Bash's documentation. If using OSX's Terminal.app then by default it reads ~/.bash_profile.

This is true of all bash on Linux or other OSes.

To read from another directory e.g. /opt/local/etc/bash_completion.d you have to edit your start up files to source (i.e. include) the files from there

The instructions for the script do not mention /opt/local/... which is a non standard location on any Unix. (by non-standard it is allowed to be used by third party packages but not defined what should be in there) They say

Copy this file to somewhere (e.g. ~/.git-completion.sh).
Add the following line to your .bashrc/.zshrc:
source ~/.git-completion.sh
Consider changing your PS1 to also show the current branch, see git-prompt.sh for details.

The progit quote assumes you know bash. All it is saying is put the files from the first quote into a specific place if you want all users on the machine to use them and not in ~ where only the user installing it can see them. i.e. the point is multi user versus single user.

He also picks that path as nothing else uses it and you should not edit /etc files in OS X as Apple's OS upgrades could overwrite them so you need to choose another place. (I would have chosen something under /usr/local as there is where manually maintained scripts are meant to go).

~/.bashrc is the correct place to edit and add the source. See your other question and the bash manual for setting up ~/.bash_profile The bash suggested way is source .bashrc into .bash_profile. Note that on OS X using Terminal.app is not the one way of running shells so there can be sessions starting with .bashrc.

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Porting Linux shell scripts

MacOS – Does Mac OS X’s bash read scripts for all users (tab-completion scripts) from /opt/local/etc/bash_completion.d path

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