Bash – Save exit code for later

bashexit-statusshell

So I have a little script for running some tests.

javac *.java && java -ea Test
rm -f *.class

Now the problem with this is that when I run the script ./test, it will return a success exit code even if the test fails because rm -f *.class succeeds.

The only way I could think of getting it to do what I want feels ugly to me:

javac *.java && java -ea Test
test_exit_code=$?
rm -f *.class
if [ "$test_exit_code" != 0 ] ; then false; fi

But this seems like something of a common problem — perform a task, clean up, then return the exit code of the original task.

What is the most idiomatic way of doing this (in bash or just shells in general)?

Best Answer

You can wrap the exit and rm commands up into a single simple-command with eval like:

java ... && java ...
eval "rm -f *.class; exit $?"

That way $?'s value when passed to exit is whatever it gets assigned immediately before eval runs.

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