Bash auto update script

At the end of the session yesterday, the if statement that I had introduced in my bash update script was not evaluating correctly.

When I was trying the if statement and the results, I mixed up the exit codes. 0 is true and 1 is false, not the other way around. The following did not work:

if [ "$reslog" = "*not up to date*" ]

But the new statement does:

if [ "$reslog" = "not up to date" ]

Apparently it doesn’t make a difference if I use the string expand ${reslog} or not, they both work. As to why the star operator doesn’t work: from what I could find, that * operator only works with the more modern double bracket test operator, which is not available on all shells.

Related things I explored on this topic:

• What is the difference between double and single square brackets in bash?
• What is the difference between test, [ and [[ ?
• In bash, how can I check if a string begins with some value?
• https://stackoverflow.com/questions/5725296/difference-between-sh-and-bash

My first auto update was deployed!

Shorthand for git add, git commit, git push to origin master

With these blog updates, as well as with code updates, the end always involves 3 different commands.

• Git add to stage the changed files
• Git commit to commit the change and add a commit message
• Git push, to push my local changes on master to the remote origin master

An exception here is larger work on a local feature branch, that I always first merge to master before pushing upstream. I was wondering of the three can’t be done in a single operation.

• git add, commit and push commands in one?
• Adding a function() to .zshrc

Adding this function to my .zshrc file doesn’t seem to be entirely error free. In IDEA, it kills my terminal every time I type “git” now. Possibly due to some auto completing feature. But I’m also using oh-my-zsh, so maybe there’s a conflict in there as well. Will continue this tomorrow. In the non-IDEA terminal I’ve also seen crashes that I can’t explain right now. Wonder if there’s a log that can tell me more about these kinds of crashes.

Day 32 Plan

• Fix my short hand alias for git add, git commit and git push origin master on zsh/oh-my-zsh.

Future days - Analyzer.atmire.com work

• Change String based implementation of error message handling with types and objects, according to Antoine Snyers recent Atmire DevTalk.
• Change string based implementation of the different browse styles to an object, according to Antoine Snyers recent Atmire DevTalk
• Optimize my hideous methods for getItemcount and getRepoCount.
• Re-test the check if we return the right repository to a user who tries to add a new one
• Updating a repository: touch/change the base URL or not?
• Batch ingest: switch to newer add repository methods.
• WCAG testing against the start page to ensure it’s accessible for people who rely on assistive tools.
• Transition from plain CSS to SASS to make it prettier and learn about SASS at the same time
• Instead of the 5 minute cron job, look into a gitlab webhook that executes the update script on prod whever something is committed to master.

Future Days - other ideas

1. Switch to a different project: start working on DSpace 7 Angular
2. Setup IDEA so I can start editing these blogposts from there, instead of in a text editor
3. Developer productivity: Get my IntelliJ IDEA Shortcuts in order (CMD+1, CMD+/, …)

Future days - Jekyll http://bram-atmire.github.io/ site

• Make it prettier

Future Days - Atmire.com work

Investigate and work on search engine optimization (SEO) for the main atmire.com website.

Future Days - Learning just for learning

• CSS: Go through the fabulous CSS Diner

Sustainability - Raising the stakes - Looking for sponsors

I have raised the stakes by

• giving €100 to Charity:Water for every day I miss.
• asking people to sponsor me and to give an amount to a charity for each day I successfully complete

This way, every day would be a win. These are the rules that I’ll apply:

1. I can anticipate or fix a lost day by doing an hour extra the day before, or an hour extra the day after. In theory this means I can maximally compensate a streak of 2 missed days.
2. Goal is to have a steady frequency, so I can’t just do 8h on a sunday to get myself off the hook for the next 7 days.
3. Sponsor commitments are fully voluntarily: any sponsor can back out at any time.
4. My commitment is fully voluntarily: if I want to change the rules or back out, I can at any time.

This month, these are already days that will be very tough:

• Sep 14,15,16,17 - Abroad for a wedding
• Sep 27,28 - Supernova conference Antwerp

So that’s already a lot of exposure to potentially missed days.

I will raise the stakes this way and gather money for Charity:Water. Let me know if you want to sponsor me and for how much per completed day in September. September 1st is the first successfully completed day.

September tracking

Will only log the failed days here. No failed days so far.

Thanks to the following sponsors!

1. Jan & Hilde: €2 per successful day (Yes, these are my parents)