How to have Bash scripts reference local files

Question

My specific problem

My goal is to provide a command-line utility for converting PowerPoint files to PDFs. I have tried solutions that use unoconv, but they don't do the conversion properly. I found a nice workflow which I saved as export_pdf.workflow. I can run this from the terminal on a file:

/usr/bin/automator -i  <some_pptx_file> export_pdf.workflow

which does what I want.

I want to make this into a shell script, but the problem is knowing where to put the workflow. I have included the usage string (so not really a MWE) in order to help express intent.

#!/usr/bin/env bash

function usage()
{
        cat <<HEREDOC
        Usage: $progname [--delete] PPTX_FILENAME

        Converts PPTX_FILENAME into a PDF by launching PowerPoint.
        PDF is produced in same directory as PPTX_FILENAME.

        optional arguments:
          -h, --help      show this help and exit
HEREDOC
}

while true; do
        case "$1" in 
                -h | --help ) usage; exit; ;;
                -- ) # end argument parsing
                        shift; break;;  
                * ) break;; 
        esac
done

# This is the line I have a question about
/usr/bin/automator -i  $1 export_pdf.workflow

This works fine, provided I run it from the directory that contains export_pdf.workflow. Ideally I would like to distribute this to live in one of the binary files, but I don't think I should move a non-executable file like export_pdf.workflow into the bin directory as well.

Solutions that won't work in this case (or at least I am looking for better ones!)

Supply absolute path: this would work on my machine, but not if I am trying to distribute to others
Put a shebang on export_pdf.workflow and make it executable: In true Apple fashion, this is actually a directory and not just a single file that gets passed to Automator.

The general problem

Outside of my specific use case, the problem I am trying to solve is that I have a file that takes many arguments, and I have a use case where I want to supply some files as arguments by default (e.g. I have a config file that I always want to specify).

Where is the "correct" or "accepted" place to put some_local_file (local to the script, not where the file gets executed) so that I can put the following script in /usr/local/bin/ or add the containing directory to the path:

#!/usr/bin/env bash
some_program -c some_local_file $1

score 2 · Answer 1 · answered Feb 01 '19 at 04:56

I'd suggest to put your script and some_local_file together in the same folder. The SCRIPTPATH can be defined in your script:

#!/usr/bin/env bash

SCRIPTPATH=$(dirname "$0")
LOCALFILE="$SCRIPTPATH/some_local_file"

some_program -c "$LOCALFILE" "$1"

Moreover, I won't put script and file under /usr/local/bin/. Instead, I'll put them somewhere like ~/Script/. In order to execute this script everywhere, update PATH variable in .bashrc:

export PATH="$PATH":${HOME}/Script

Hope my suggestions could give you a hint to solve your problem. Good luck!

How to have Bash scripts reference local files

My specific problem

The general problem

1 Answers1