I’ve been struggling with a rather complex shell script, and it’s becoming apparent that Bash might not be the best choice for this particular task. While I usually gravitate towards statically typed languages like Go or Rust, I’ve noticed that many people recommend alternative languages such as Lua or Python for scripting tasks.
I’m curious to know your opinions and experiences with scripting languages for larger or more intricate shell scripts. Have you ever encountered a situation where Bash just didn’t cut it, and if so, which scripting languages did you turn to for a more effective solution? Are there any specific languages you found particularly suitable for debugging, testing, or handling complex logic in your shell scripts?
What are you trying to achieve in Bash that you’re struggling with? It’s hard to suggest alternatives without knowing your objectives since languages excel in different areas.
Temporary files management for a
~/tmpfolder, with archiving and cleanup after x and y days.You could look at logrotate if you don’t want to do something custom
The expression syntax for the GNU find command is very powerful. I would expect that it is up to the task. If you don’t have the GNU find command with it’s extensions I could see how it’s would be difficult.
As @damium@programming.dev says you may be able to do this with
findcommand. This command lists all PDF files under ~/tmp that were created more than 7 days ago and does a directory listing. You could use this as a basis to move create an archive of individual files.find ~/tmp -ctime +7 -iname "*pdf" -exec ls -rlht {} \;The
findcommand also has a-deleteflag.I have in the past used this combination to implement file management. I don’t have access to the script any more. I don’t remember why we used a shell script rather than logrotate as per @oddityoverseer@lemmy.world