Bash get exit status of command when 'set -e' is active?

Question

I generally have -e set in my Bash scripts, but occasionally I would like to run a command and get the return value.

Without doing the set +e; som

Answer 1

From the bash manual:

The shell does not exit if the command that fails is [...] part of any command executed in a && or || list [...].

So, just do:

#!/bin/bash

set -eu

foo() {
  # exit code will be 0, 1, or 2
  return $(( RANDOM % 3 ))
}

ret=0
foo || ret=$?
echo "foo() exited with: $ret"

Example runs:

$ ./foo.sh
foo() exited with: 1
$ ./foo.sh
foo() exited with: 0
$ ./foo.sh
foo() exited with: 2

This is the canonical way of doing it.