From 617cede28dbb2c35546d4c6ccd6a150ff7c1ada5 Mon Sep 17 00:00:00 2001 From: Christine Dodrill Date: Mon, 23 Apr 2018 20:42:40 -0700 Subject: [PATCH] blog: new post: The Beautiful in the Ugly --- blog/beauty-in-ugly-2018-04-23.markdown | 88 +++++++++++++++++++++++++ 1 file changed, 88 insertions(+) create mode 100644 blog/beauty-in-ugly-2018-04-23.markdown diff --git a/blog/beauty-in-ugly-2018-04-23.markdown b/blog/beauty-in-ugly-2018-04-23.markdown new file mode 100644 index 0000000..1ead059 --- /dev/null +++ b/blog/beauty-in-ugly-2018-04-23.markdown @@ -0,0 +1,88 @@ +--- +title: The Beautiful in the Ugly +date: 2018-04-23 +for: Silver +--- + +# The Beautiful in the Ugly + +Functional programming is nice and all, but sometimes you just need to have +things get done regardless of the consequences. Sometimes a dirty little hack +will suffice in place of a branching construct. This is a story of one of these +times. + +In shell script, bare words are interpreted as arbitrary commands for the shell +to run, interpreted in its rules (simplified to make this story more interesting): + +1. The first word in a command is the name or path of the program being loaded +2. Variable expansions are processed before commands are executed + +Given the following snippet of shell script: + +```shell +#!/bin/sh +# hello.sh + +function hello { + echo "hello, $1" +} + +$1 $2 +``` + +When you run this without any arguments: + +```console +$ sh ./hello.sh +$ +``` + +Nothing happens. + +Change it to the following: + +```console +$ sh ./hello.sh hello world +hello, world +$ sh ./hello.sh ls +hello.sh +``` + +Shell commands are bare words. Variable expansion can turn into execution. +Normally, this is terrifying. This is useful in fringe cases. + +Consider the following script: + +```shell +#!/bin/sh +# build.sh [arguments] + +projbase=github.com/Xe/printerfacts + +function gitrev { + git rev-parse HEAD +} + +function app { + export GOBIN="$(pwd)"/bin + go install github.com/Xe/printerfacts/cmd/printerfacts +} + +function install_system { + app + + cp ./bin/printerfacts /usr/local/bin/printerfacts +} + +function docker { + docker build -t xena/printerfacts . + docker build -t xena/printerfacts:"$(gitrev)" +} + +function deploy { + docker tag xena/printerfacts:"$(gitrev)" registry.heroku.com/printerfacts/web + docker push registry.heroku.com/printerfacts/web +} + +$* +``` \ No newline at end of file