[SOLVED] Bash some questions please

Guys,


sorry to bother you again. I have a couple of Bash questions


Suppose I have 2 scripts like this


script1

#!/bin/bash
echo "In script 1"
source script2.sh
echo "back in script 1"
exit 0

script2

#!/bin/bash
echo "in script 2"
exit 0

Question 1:
Is using "source" the best way to call another script or ???
I would prefer to have the scripts in the same Dir as the "Main" script, but if that is not a good idea, please let me know

Question 2:

Must I use exit 0 (or any other errorlevel) or use return to leave SCRIPT2 or is that not necessary ?

Question 3:

And must I use exit "number" at the end of the main script or is that also not necessary (not doing anything with the output (yet )

Thx again guys, really appreciated.

1) The built-in command source executes the other script in the current shell environment. So that would override whatever you have in the shebang in the other script. Maybe that makes a difference, maybe not.

For example, if the first script runs with #!/bin/bash and the second script with #!/bin/sh, calling the second script with source will make it run under bash instead of sh.

2) Unless you called the second script with exec, it will return to the first script where it was called. However, the exit code it carries with it will depend on what you have at the end, see next.

3) A script will return the exit code from whatever command was its final one, unless it was overridden. So using exit command overrides the last command in the script and returns a final code for the script as a whole.

#!/bin/sh
/bin/false

versus

#!/bin/sh
/bin/false
exit 0

The first script above will return 1 and the second script will return 0. So exit is useful if you want to track whether the script as a whole succeeded or failed.

Thx.

Your examples made it perfectly clear !!

the answer is no, you do not need to do that, but you can do that. It always depends on the situation, the requirements. Every case you listed is legal and usable.