Get exit code for command in bash/ksh

Question

I want to write code like this:

command=\"some command\"

safeRunCommand $command

safeRunCommand() {
   cmnd=$1

   $($cmnd)

   if [ $? != 0 ]         


        

Answer 1

There are several things wrong with your script.

Functions (subroutines) should be declared before attempting to call them. You probably want to return() but not exit() from your subroutine to allow the calling block to test the success or failure of a particular command. That aside, you don't capture 'ERROR_CODE' so that is always zero (undefined).

It's good practice to surround your variable references with curly braces, too. Your code might look like:

#!/bin/sh
command="/bin/date -u"          #...Example Only

safeRunCommand() {
   cmnd="$@"                    #...insure whitespace passed and preserved
   $cmnd
   ERROR_CODE=$?                #...so we have it for the command we want
   if [ ${ERROR_CODE} != 0 ]; then
      printf "Error when executing command: '${command}'\n"
      exit ${ERROR_CODE}        #...consider 'return()' here
   fi
}

safeRunCommand $command
command="cp"
safeRunCommand $command