choosing between $0 and BASH_SOURCE

Question

How does one choose between \"$0\" and \"${BASH_SOURCE[0]}\"

This description from GNU didn\'t help me much.

    BASH_SOURC         


        

Answer 1

These scripts may help illustrate. The outer script calls the middle script, which calls the inner script:

$ cat outer.sh
#!/usr/bin/env bash
./middle.sh

$ cat middle.sh
#!/usr/bin/env bash
./inner.sh

$ cat inner.sh
#!/usr/bin/env bash
echo "\$0 = '$0'"
echo "\${BASH_SOURCE[0]} = '${BASH_SOURCE[0]}'"
echo "\${BASH_SOURCE[1]} = '${BASH_SOURCE[1]}'"
echo "\${BASH_SOURCE[2]} = '${BASH_SOURCE[2]}'"

$ ./outer.sh
$0 = './inner.sh'
$BASH_SOURCE[0] = './inner.sh'
$BASH_SOURCE[1] = ''
$BASH_SOURCE[2] = ''

However, if we change the script calls to source statements:

$ cat outer.sh
#!/usr/bin/env bash
source ./middle.sh

$ cat middle.sh
#!/usr/bin/env bash
source ./inner.sh

$ cat inner.sh
#!/usr/bin/env bash
echo "\$0 = '$0'"
echo "\${BASH_SOURCE[0]} = '${BASH_SOURCE[0]}'"
echo "\${BASH_SOURCE[1]} = '${BASH_SOURCE[1]}'"
echo "\${BASH_SOURCE[2]} = '${BASH_SOURCE[2]}'"

$ ./outer.sh
$0 = './outer.sh'
$BASH_SOURCE[0] = './inner.sh'
$BASH_SOURCE[1] = './middle.sh'
$BASH_SOURCE[2] = './outer.sh'