bashly won't run by default on Mac, due to zsh standard and bash 3.2 about bashly

[thomasaarholt]

Ooh, that's an exciting package that I was totally unaware of! Thanks!

[DannyBen]

The generated scripts require bash 4 as stated in the prerequisites section of the documentation.

Changing the shebang to zsh is not a good idea as it will just require double effort in testing, and will force the generated script to use the lowest common demonimator. You can still run bash scripts in zsh (or any other) shell, as long as a modern bash is installed.

Bash 4.0 was released in 2009 - the complaint should be directed to Apple for bundling a 12 year old software.

I can add the instruction for brew install bash in the prerequisites section - will that be acceptable as a hint? In addition, if you know your users are mostly on mac with outdated bash, you can customize this error by adding the following file to your src folder:

# src/bashly-strings.yml
unsupported_bash_version: "bash version 4 or higher is required (brew install bash on mac)"

See Custom Strings in the docs for more info.

Also, the graceful exit when bash is < 4 was recently added by a user request (#90).

but updating bash can be viewed as invasive by sysadmin.

... there is really no reason to keep an old bash in the system. Apple uses it just due to some licensing wars to my understanding. I don't believe in "staying behind" just because the manufacturer has a different agenda than user happiness (e.g. Internet Explorer 11...).

[thomasaarholt]

Happy to help :) sorry if my "solutions" came across as a bit "not-thought-through" - I was just trying to think of ideas.
Very excited to use the bashly script that we've created! :)

[DannyBen]

sorry if my "solutions" came across as a bit "not-thought-through"

Are you kidding? It is very appreciated that you took the time to look for solutions and not just point out a problem.

In fact, I feel like I should be the one to apologize for not having this requirement (and solution) more clearly on the documentation site - so let's meet in the middle, and nobody apologizes to nobody! :)

Very excited to use the bashly script that we've created! :)

Happy to hear!
There are quite a few "hidden features" that can be found in the documentations and examples, and also note that the generated script is by design, very human readable.

[thomasaarholt]

Nice! Thanks for the suggestion on the .yml, we'll do that!
The graceful exit makes total sense :)

I agree with blaming Apple for all this nonsense!

[DannyBen]

Cool.

I will update the docs, and if more users land on this issue and think that changing the default error message to include instructions to brew install bash is a good idea, please comment here and I will add it if there is demand.

Thanks for your report, and If something else is unclear or not working as expected, feel free to open a new issue.

[thomasaarholt]

Sounds great 😄 Thanks for your help!

[DannyBen]

Oh - and one last tip:

If you are serious about your bash scripts, and the quality of your code, you should use shellcheck to verify the output.

All code generated by bashly itself, is shellcheck compliant.

EDIT: I have added more details about Testing Your Scripts to the docs.