Directory Tools

dir_tools.bsh

Tools that deal with directories and paths, including making temporary file paths.

parent_find_files
Arguments:

$1… - The names of the files being searched for

Return Value:

file_matches - array containing matches

Find files by searching up the parent tree

Searches for files to use. It starts by checking the current directory, and goes up. Just like git searches for a .git directory

_VSI_TEMP_PATHS

Note

Do NOT mess with this variable. It is used to force recursive remove directories, and any mishaps could result in serious injury to computer, and you, depending on how upset you get by losing your computer.

make_temp_path
Arguments:

$1 - Name of variable where temporary path will be stored [$2…] - Optionally add additional arguments to mktemp calls. The most useful thing to add would be -t, as this is in all the OSes. -d is often used to make a directory

Parameters:

DIR_TOOLS_KEEP_TEMP_PATHS - Set to keep the temporary paths instead of deleting them (typically for debugging). This can be used in two difference ways. 1) It can be set on each call to make_temp_path and only affects that one call. 2) It can also be set globally so that when bash exits, none of the paths will be removed. Default: unset.

Output:

$1 - Name of temporary path

Create self cleaning temp directories

Usage

Use this to create a self deleting temp file/directory. If you do not want to have it self delete, just use mktemp instead.

Can be called multiple times

Example

make_temp_path temp_dir -d
touch "${temp_dir}"/file1

# Do NOT
t="$(make_temp_path temp_dir -d; echo "${temp_dir}")"
# or
(
  make_temp_path temp_dir -d
  touch "${temp_dir}"/file2
) # The temp_dir is deleted here
cat "${temp_dir}"/file2 # Fails
# As these will create and delete the temp dir within the subcommand, by design

# This is good, as the temp files will be cleaned up sooner
(
  make_temp_path temp_dir -d
  touch "${temp_dir}"/file2
  cat "${temp_dir}"/file2 # Success!
) # The temp_dir is deleted here

Note

This uses the EXIT, INT, and TERM traps. If you use these too, your traps will be automatically chained using signal_tools.bsh trap_chain.

mktemp_compat

OS-compatible version of mktemp -p

Arguments:

$1 - The location in which to make the temporary directory

Output:

stdout - The path, ${1}/{a_temp_dir}, to the temporary directory

Make a temporary directory in a specific location. This emulates the mktemp -p DIR behavior for OS’s that don’t support it (macOS)

normpath
Arguments:

  • $1 - path

Output:

stdout - Normalized path

Prints out a normalized version of the path. With .., //, and ./ simplified out, and removes trailing /

Unlike real_path, this works on non-existing path, but is not as reliable as real_path

basenames
Arguments:

  • $1 - Number of levels to keep

  • $2 - path

Output:

stdout - base name up to $1 levels deep

Multiple level version of basename

Note

basenames 2 test will result in ./test as the implied dirname is .

is_dir_empty

Checks to see if there is any files or directories in a given directory, other than . and ...

Arguments:

$1 - The directory to search, must have permissions, or else it may give false results

Return Value:

  • 0 - Empty

  • 1 - Not empty

Uses:

find to search the directory

Searches a directory and stops as soon as something is found. You can write your own version of this to modify the conditions the find use. Other versions include find "${1}" -type f -printf '1\n' -quit which requires that a file specifically (not a directory) be in the tree somewhere. Add -maxdepth 1 for saying a file must be in the initial directory, not the entire tree.

get_mktemp_dir

Get the default temp dir that mktemp uses

Output:

stdout - The temp dir, may need real_path real_path run on it to dereference symlinks

common_prefix

Return the longest prefix of all list elements. Based on python’s os.path.commonprefix

Arguments:

  • $1 - A path

  • $2 - Another path

Output:

stdout - The longest common prefix

Note

This function may return invalid paths because it works a character at a time.

relative_path

Return a relative filepath to path from the start directory.

Arguments:

  • $1 - The file path

  • $2 - The start path

Output:

stdout - The relative path

This is a path computation; the filesystem is not accessed to confirm the existence or nature of path or start. Based on python’s os.path.relpath

strip_copy
Arguments:

  • $1 - The source directory

  • $2 - The destination directory

  • $3 - Strip this many leading components from file names on cp

Replicates the behavior of tar --strip-components, but when applied to a cp scenario.

Note

cp will process files in a different order than tar --strip-components. In the case where there are multiple files with the same name at a stripped depth, the file may be overwritten in a different order than tar --strip-components would have. While tar keeps the first one in the archive order, cp will keep the last one in cp order. Consequently, the order is not guaranteed.