Passing error message back to script

Shell Programming and Scripting
1

I have one script that calls another script during execution. The other script does some processing, then either returns with exit 0 (if successful), or exits with error code numbers (if failed). However, in addition to the error code, I would like for that second script to be able to pass a message, in a string perhaps, to the initial script.

Would that be feasible?

2

You can better returning the numbers only and use mappings with number and error description to recognize it.

3

May be with command substitution.

Hint:

lem@biggy:/tmp$ cat file1
#!/bin/sh
false || echo "problem"
exit 0

lem@biggy:/tmp$ cat file2
#!/bin/sh
echo first
echo $(/tmp/file1)
echo last
exit 0

lem@biggy:/tmp$ ./file2
first
problem
last
lem@biggy:/tmp$
1 Like
4

Simply source the called script, then all variables set there are available in the calling script too.

$ ./script1.sh
calling script 2
String: it works
Value: 1

$ cat script1.sh
echo calling script 2
. ./script2.sh
RET_VAL=$?
echo String: $RET_STRING
echo Value: $RET_VAL

$ cat script2.sh
RET_STRING="it works"
return 1
$
1 Like
5

Or ... read the output from the called script:

#script1
./script2 | read reply
echo "Reply is: ${reply}"

#script2
echo "Working"
exit 0

./script1
Reply is: Working
1 Like