Check if a file is executable

Question

I am wondering what\'s the easiest way to check if a program is executable with bash, without executing it ? It should at least check whether the file has execute rights, a

Answer 1

This might be not so obvious, but sometime is required to test the executable to appropriately call it without an external shell process:

function tkl_is_file_os_exec()
{
  [[ ! -x "$1" ]] && return 255

  local exec_header_bytes
  case "$OSTYPE" in
    cygwin* | msys* | mingw*)
      # CAUTION:
      #   The bash version 3.2+ might require a file path together with the extension,
      #   otherwise will throw the error: `bash: ...: No such file or directory`.
      #   So we make a guess to avoid the error.
      #
      {
        read -r -n 4 exec_header_bytes 2> /dev/null < "$1" ||
        {
          [[ -x "${1%.exe}.exe" ]] && read -r -n 4 exec_header_bytes 2> /dev/null < "${1%.exe}.exe"
        } ||
        {
          [[ -x "${1%.com}.com" ]] && read -r -n 4 exec_header_bytes 2> /dev/null < "${1%.com}.com"
        }
      } &&
      if [[ "${exec_header_bytes:0:3}" == $'MZ\x90' ]]; then
        # $'MZ\x90\00' for bash version 3.2.42+
        # $'MZ\x90\03' for bash version 4.0+
        [[ "${exec_header_bytes:3:1}" == $'\x00' || "${exec_header_bytes:3:1}" == $'\x03' ]] && return 0
      fi
    ;;
    *)
      read -r -n 4 exec_header_bytes < "$1"
      [[ "$exec_header_bytes" == $'\x7fELF' ]] && return 0
    ;;
  esac

  return 1
}

# executes script in the shell process in case of a shell script, otherwise executes as usual
function tkl_exec_inproc()
{
  if tkl_is_file_os_exec "$1"; then
    "$@"
  else
    . "$@"
  fi
  return $?
}

myscript.sh:

#!/bin/bash

echo 123

return 123

In Cygwin:

> tkl_exec_inproc /cygdrive/c/Windows/system32/cmd.exe /c 'echo 123'
123
> tkl_exec_inproc /cygdrive/c/Windows/system32/chcp.com 65001
Active code page: 65001
> tkl_exec_inproc ./myscript.sh
123
> echo $?
123

In Linux:

> tkl_exec_inproc /bin/bash -c 'echo 123'
123
> tkl_exec_inproc ./myscript.sh
123
> echo $?
123