[lug] Bash Scripting Ping

D. Stimits stimits at comcast.net
Sun Nov 8 12:26:26 MST 2020


> On 11/08/2020 12:18 PM Steve Sullivan <steve.sullivan at mathcom.com> wrote:
> 
>  
> This would be easy in python3 ... or many other languages.
> Is bash the only possible route?

Yes, I am interested in the "bash" way to do this. I can do this in other languages, but it just seems to stick to my brain that I want to know how to tokenize a text stream in bash without waiting for the infinite text stream to end. I just thought that if I understood doing this in bash I might have found something interesting about the language after years of boredom with it. I guess I'm still trying to entertain myself with things most people are not entertained by.

> For example ...
> 
> === testa.py ===
> #!/usr/bin/env python3
> 
> import subprocess, sys
> 
> fin = sys.stdin
> line = ''
> while True:
>   chr = fin.read(1)
>   if chr == '\n':
>     subprocess.run('echo The line is: \'' + line + '\'', shell=True)
>     line = ''
>   else: line += chr
> 
> 
> 
> === Test it:
> chmod u+x testa.py
> seq 101 103 | ./testa.py
> ping google.com | ./testa.py
> 
> 
> Steve
> 
> 
> On Sun, Nov 08, 2020 at 11:50:18AM -0700, D. Stimits wrote:
> > 
> > > 
> > >     How's Jed's suggestion different from what you need?
> > > 
> > A single ping is a single line of text, followed by termination of the process providing the text. I am interested in parsing sections of a continuous, never ending string of text whenever a newline is found. Each newline providing a "token" to process, but the text stream never ending.
> > 
> > How do I trigger something to occur on a subset of a continuous string of text delimited by newlines without actually ending that continuous source of a text stream? That is the brain teaser, to arbitrarily pick and process subsets of a continuous stream of characters in bash. It does not need to be "ping", that is just the case that is puzzling me.
> > 
> > Perhaps an updated pseudo code:
> > stream = `ping` # ping never ends, but embeds newlines.
> > while (stream.subset_token_via_newline); do
> > do stuff with newline delimited token, not interrupting the stream;
> > done
> > 
> > Versus:
> > while (true); do
> > token = something_generating_a_single_token;
> > do something with token;
> > done
> > 
> > >     Best regards,
> > >     kh
> > > 
> > > 
> > >     On 9 November 2020 02:27:21 GMT+08:00, "D. Stimits" <stimits at comcast.net> wrote:
> > > 
> > >         > > 
> > > > 
> > > >             > > > On 11/08/2020 11:21 AM Jed S. Baer <blug at jbaer.cotse.net> wrote:
> > > > > 
> > > > > 
> > > > >             On Sun, 8 Nov 2020 10:53:09 -0700 (MST)
> > > > >             D. Stimits wrote:
> > > > > 
> > > > > 
> > > > >                 > > > > I am curious about something in bash scripting which does not seem to be
> > > > > >                 particularly easy. I wanted to script "ping -O -D address" such that each
> > > > > >                 line gets processed by some logic if the ping fails. Redirecting ping to
> > > > > >                 a variable does not work because it only "returns" when the ping exits
> > > > > >                 (each line is not an exit). Even if I were to fork and exec, the forked
> > > > > >                 process would itself have the same problem.
> > > > > > 
> > > > > >                 Is there some simple/clever way to process each line of a ping in bash
> > > > > >                 without killing off the ping itself? My goal was to send it through some
> > > > > >                 database and statistics type processing as success/failure lines occur.
> > > > > > 
> > > > > >             > > > I'm not sure of quite what you want. Is it necessary to process this in
> > > > >             real time? And you say "...if ping fails", but then "... as success/failure
> > > > >             lines occur."
> > > > > 
> > > > >         > > 
> > > > 
> > > >         I'd like to know if there is a way to pipe the output of ping such that each line is equivalent to a loop iteration. Pseudo code:
> > > >            while (ping text line); do
> > > >               line | edit line; # e.g., substituting microseconds for date.
> > > >               print edit line if conditions are met; # e.g., a few lines of fail prior to print.
> > > >            done
> > > > 
> > > >         I'm not actually concerned that this is ping so much as I am trying to figure out how a newline from a continuous command can be used to trigger a loop iteration. It has become something of a "brain teaser" for me. It is easy if the ping itself ends with a single ping. It is also easy if you run ping all day and only then process the results upon exit of ping. I am now just really curious how the newline delimited continuous output of ping can be used to trigger something else despite the continuous output itself not stopping.
> > > > 
> > > >         > 
> > > > 
> > > >             > > > The super simple thing is a bash read loop. But you won't know the exit
> > > > >             status until the ping finishes.
> > > > > 
> > > > >             $ ping -c 3 -D -O n.n.n.n | while read LINE;
> > > > > 
> > > > >                 > > > > do
> > > > > >                 echo $LINE
> > > > > >                 done
> > > > > > 
> > > > > >             > > > Bash read will do token separation using IFS, so you could do
> > > > >             | while read FIELD1 FIELD2 etc
> > > > > 
> > > > >             Offhand, if the exit status of ping must be known before processing, then
> > > > >             redirect ping output to a file, check status, then you can still do a bash
> > > > >             read loop to process the file. If needed, the bash mktemp command will
> > > > >             generate a unique tmp filename for your ping output.
> > > > > 
> > > > >             --
> > > > >             All operating systems suck, but Linux just sucks less
> > > > >             - Linus Torvalds
> > > > >             ---------------------------------------------
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> 
> -- 
> 
> ========================================
> Steve Sullivan      steve.sullivan at mathcom.com
> 720-587-7498        http://www.mathcom.com
> ========================================
> _______________________________________________
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