I like to define a function in ~/.bashrc and use it in different scripts either via export -f or source .bashrc.

The function:

nano ~/.bashrc
function test_func() { yt-dlp -f '299+140' --merge-output-format mp4 -cia List.txt;
}
export -f test_func

The script:

#!/bin/bash
cd /home/admn/Downloads/YT_DL;
test_func --autonumber-start 101 -o '%(autonumber)1d_%(title)s.%(ext)s';

Problem-1:

After test_func, rest of the command --autonumber-start 101 -o '%(autonumber)1d_%(title)s.%(ext)s' is not working at all.

---

---

Problem-2:

Earlier when I tried to use source .bashrc in my script, I was getting these errors:

/usr/local/scripts/test.sh: line 3: .bashrc: No such file or directory
/usr/local/scripts/test.sh: line 12: test_func: command not found

The function (without export -f):

nano ~/.bashrc
function test_func() { yt-dlp -f '299+140' --merge-output-format mp4 -cia List.txt;
}

The script (with source .bashrc):

#!/bin/bash
source .bashrc
cd /home/admn/Downloads/YT_DL;
test_func --autonumber-start 101 -o '%(autonumber)1d_%(title)s.%(ext)s';

Edit-1:

$ bash -xv /usr/local/scripts/test.sh
#!/bin/bash
source /home/admn/.bashrc
+ source /home/admn/.bashrc
# ~/.bashrc: executed by bash(1) for non-login shells.
# see /usr/share/doc/bash/examples/startup-files (in the package bash-doc)
# for examples
# alias pip='pip3.7'
alias python='python3'
++ alias python=python3
# If not running interactively, don't do anything
case $- in *i*) ;; *) return;;
esac
++ case $- in
++ return
test_func --autonumber-start 101 -o '%(autonumber)1d_%(title)s.%(ext)s';
+ test_func --autonumber-start 101 -o '%(autonumber)1d_%(title)s.%(ext)s'
/usr/local/scripts/test.sh: line 5: test_func: command not found
$ 

These are some of the threads I have gone through; and though I've got some ideas, I still couldn't work out a solution for my use case. Thanks.

Define a globally available bash function to be used by any script

OS: Ubuntu MATE 21.04

Bash: 5.1.4(1)-release (x86_64-pc-linux-gnu)

1 Answer

If you want the function to use parameters, you need to explicitly mention them.

function test_func() { yt-dlp "$@" -f '299+140' --merge-output-format mp4 -cia List.txt # ~~~~
}

"$@" stands for "all the parameters", you can also use positional parameters like "$1", "$2", etc.

If you source a file from a different directory, you need to either specify a full path to it, or have the file's path in $PATH.

source ~/.bashrc
# or
PATH+=:~
source .bashrc

After the update:Your .bashrc contains a return that stops processing the .bashrc if not running in an interactive shell. Put the function declaration somewhere before the condition if you want to execute it in non-interactive shells, too.

8

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