What is kal-shlib-pretty ?

This is part of kal-shlib-* package, you should see documentation of kal-shlib-core for more general information.

How can install it ?

From source

Consider this release as Very Alpha. Use at your own risk. It may or may not upgrade to a more user friendly version in future, depending on my spare time.

Nevertheless, this package supports GNU install quite well so a simple:

# autogen.sh && ./configure && make && make install

Should work (and has been tested and is currently used).

Note

you can specify a prefix thanks to --prefix=/your/location as configure argument.

From debian package

A debian package repository is available at:

deb http://deb.kalysto.org no-dist kal-alpha

you should include this repository to your apt system and then:

apt-get update && apt-get install kal-shlib-pretty

What are dependencies for this package ?

You will need to install:

kal-shlib-core

before using this package. Note that if you choose the debian package installation, dependencies will be installed automatically.

What do this package contains ?

Libraries which are files called lib*.sh installed in $prefix/lib/shlib/

The debian package version will install directly to this location (knowing that prefix is /usr)

What these libraries provide ?

Hands on

It provides a quick way to get pretty and consistent outputs in ASCII:

My Title

My Section - My first Elt [ OK ] W - My sec Elt status [FAILED] - My big lengthy desc.. foo [ OFF ] - Just info.

This output is in fancy color by default, and was obtained thanks to these shell lines:

Title "My Title"
Section "My Section"
Elt "Launching My first Elt"

##
##  First element
##

print_info_char W   ## prints the "W" at the end of line

Elt "My first Elt"  ## rewrite the label of the first element

## ... launch a script that returns errlvl 0

Feedback  ## prints the "OK" depending on errlvl, and issue a linefeed.

##
## Second element
##

Elt "My sec Elt"
print_info "status"
print_status "failure"
Feed

##
## Third element
##

Elt "My big lengthy description"

## ... launch a script that returns errlvl != 0

Feedback OFF ON foo bar  ## changes defaults OK/FAILED status message
                         ## or even the ``info`` part.

##
## Final element
##

Elt "Just info."
Feed                     ## simply issue a line feed.

There's also a all-in-one wrapper of a task I do very often:

Wrap my-shell-command arg1 arg2 arg3

Will output:

- my-shell-command ar..          [  OK  ] W

Of course, if you have larger term, the whole command line is diplayed.

And if command fails:

- my-shell-command ar..          [FAILED] W
***** ERROR in wrapped command:
***** code:
my-shell-command arg1 arg2 arg3
>>>>> Log info follows:
bash: line 1: my-shell-command: command not found
<<<<< End Log.
***** errorlevel was : 127

All this is in bright yellow and red color, it makes it much more readable.

You can also provide a better description quite easily:

Wrap -d "My description" my-shell-command arg1 arg2 arg3

Which would naturally display:

- My description           [  OK  ] W

And last of all, if no command is given on the command line, it'll get your standard input, which is easier to use && or piping or other shell-fu techniques:

Wrap -d "Do a lot of things" <<EOF
  my-first-command arg1 arg2 | grep something &&
  my-first-command arg1 arg2
EOF

Don't forget that Wrap will output the exact same errorlevel so you can safely:

Wrap -d "Do a lot of things" <<EOF || exit 1
  my-first-command arg1 arg2 | grep something &&
  my-first-command arg1 arg2
EOF

to quit your program, or with kal-shlib-common in mind:

Wrap -d "Do a lot of things" <<EOF || print_error "Argl, I can't continue safely."
  my-first-command arg1 arg2 | grep something &&
  my-first-command arg1 arg2
EOF

Often, we just want to the command to run quietly, but have the lengthy report of failure if it fails:

Wrap -q my-command

Will do the trick.

features

These commands ensure that:

• you can change Title, Section, Elt and subpart of Elt if you haven't issued a Feed.
• the final output can be seen correctly without colors thanks to ansi_color environment variable set to "no"
• color used work well with white or black backgrounds
• Feedback and Wrap commands that change depending on the last errorlevel will re-cast the same errorlevel.