Dialog in bash is not grabbing variables correctly

Question

I'm having a bit of problem with the consistency of this script. You can run it once, without any issues. However if you immediately load it back up and run it again, it doesn't grab the variables correctly because the output isn't written to the files the right way.

Ex: This utility is designed to essentially update 4 files. .temp, .tiers, .version, and .sync Upon various stages through dialog prompts, it updates a file. My problem is, some times it doesn't update the file and I cannot find any cause as it's only after you've already ran it once. I wipe the files at start up, so I'm not sure what the deal is. It's like it's grabbing it solely from memory?

At any rate, to test this you'll need the below file in /test

Thanks for anyone who can give me some guidance.

cat .tiers
Stable=1
Release=2
Beta=3

CODE:

#!/usr/bin/env bash
touch .version
touch .temp
VERSION=`cat .version`
DIR=/test/
STORED=`cat ${DIR}/.temp`
################################
#     REARRANGE TIERS          #
################################
rearrange()
{
start
end
}


################################
#     SYNC FILE EXISTS         #
################################
sync_exists()
{
dialog --msgbox ".sync exists in the directory $(echo ${VERSION}).\n\n Use Tier Move                 instead." 10 40
clean_up
exit 1;
}


################################
#         CLEAN UP             #
################################
clean_up()
{
rm -rf .version
rm -rf .update
rm -rf .temp
}

################################
#     OPTOUT & CLEAN UP        #
################################
opt_out()
{
dialog --msgbox "You've opted out of the tier update." 5 40
rm -rf ${DIR}/.version ${DIR}/.update ${DIR}/.temp 
}


################################
#     UPDATE .TIERS FILE       #
################################
tier_updater()
{
dialog --msgbox "\n\n
$(cat ${DIR}/.temp) is now $VERSION." 8 27
sed -i s/${STORED}=.*/${STORED}=${VERSION}/g ${DIR}/.tiers
clean_up
}



################################
#     UPDATE FILE LIST         #
################################
file_updater()
{

rm -rf ${VERSION}/.sync
        for x in `find $VERSION -type d \( ! -iname "." \)|sed s/${VERSION}//g`; do echo     "d===$x===755" >> ${DIR}/${VERSION}/.sync ; done
        for y in `find $VERSION -type f \( ! -iname ".*" \)|sed s/${VERSION}//g`; do     echo "f===$y===644===`md5sum ${VERSION}"$y"|awk '{print $1}'`" >>     "${DIR}"/"$VERSION"/.sync;done
        find "${DIR}"/"${VERSION}" -type f -exec gzip -f '{}' \; > /dev/null 2>&1      |xargs gzip -d "${DIR}"/${VERSION}/.sync
}



################################
#     TIER UPDATE PROMPT       #
################################
tier_update_prompt()
{
if [ -f ${VERSION}/.sync ]; then  sync_exists
else file_updater
fi
dialog --menu "\n
Directory List Built.\n
File List Built.\n
Files Compressed.\n
Sync File in place.\n\n
Would you like to update the tier for $(cat ${DIR}/.temp)?" \ 15 60 2  "Yes" "This will     apply all changes for $(echo $VERSION) to $(cat ${DIR}/.temp)." "No" "This will revert all     changes." 2>&1 > ${DIR}/.update
if [ "$?" = "0" ] ; then
        _update=$(cat ${DIR}/.update)
if [ "$_update" = "Yes" ] ; then
tier_updater
fi
if [ "$_update" = "No" ] ; then
opt_out ;
fi
else
        echo "You have now exited the application"
    clean_up;
fi
}

################################
#     NEW VERSION INPUT        #
################################ 
stable()
{
dialog --inputbox "Enter the new version for $(cat ${DIR}/.temp)" 8 30 2>     "${DIR}"/.version
if [ -d `cat .version` ] ; then tier_update_prompt;
        else
            dialog --msgbox "WARNING!!!!\n\n The folder $(${VERSION}) does not     exist!\nPlease upload this folder before you proceed!" 8 50 ;
        clean_up
    fi
}

################################
#        TIER SELECTION        #
################################
startup()
{
dialog --menu "Tiers are currently set as the following. Which would you like to update?    \n" 12 78 5 \
"Stable" "$(cat ${DIR}/.tiers|grep Stable|sed 's/Stable=//g')" "Release" "$(cat     ${DIR}/.tiers|grep Release|sed 's/Release=//g')" "Beta" "$(cat ${DIR}/.tiers|grep Beta|sed     's/Beta=//g')"  2> "${DIR}"/.temp
# OK is pressed
if [ "$?" = "0" ] ; then
        _return=$(cat ${DIR}/.temp)
fi
if [ "$_return" = "Stable" ] ; then
stable
fi
if [ "$_return" = "Release" ] ; then
stable
fi
if [ "$_return" = "Beta" ] ; then
stable
    else 
            echo "You have now exited the application"      
    clean_up;
fi
}

Answer 1

You can use that method to capture dialog otput directly into variable:

exec 3>&1 
result=$(dialog  --menu head 15 20 6 $(for ((i=1;i<30;i++));do echo  tag$i item$i;done)  2>&1 1>&3);
exitcode=$?;
exec 3>&-;
echo $result $exitcode

http://mywiki.wooledge.org/BashFAQ/002

so with my approach startup will look like:

startup()
{
  exec 3>&1 
  _return=$(dialog --menu "Tiers are currently set as the following. Which would you like to update?    \n" 12 78 5 \
  "Stable" "$(cat ${DIR}/.tiers|grep Stable|sed 's/Stable=//g')" "Release" "$(cat     ${DIR}/.tiers|grep Release|sed 's/Release=//g')" "Beta" "$(cat ${DIR}/.tiers|grep Beta|sed     's/Beta=//g')"  2>&1 1>&3)
   exitcode=$?
   exec 3>&-;
    # OK is pressed
  if [ "$exitcode" == "0" ] ; then
    if [[ "$_return" == "Stable" || "$_return" == "Release" || "$_return" == "Beta" ]] 
    then
       stable
    fi
  fi
  echo "You have now exited the application"      
  clean_up;
}

additionaly many unclean things like $(${VERSION}) here:

dialog --msgbox "WARNING!!!!\n\n The folder $(${VERSION}) does not

as i understand from code it will run empty command as .version is empty on startup and

 VERSION=`cat .version`

in tier_update_prompt() $VERSION still empty string,

I tried to refactory your code, but it turn that it messed to much so suggestions:

• get dialog results as i shown above
• run functions with parameters:

#declaration
function_name() { 
  parameter=$1;
  echo "$parameter"
}
var=value
#run function
function_name var     

• do not overcomplexity with ${VAR},
• remember that double quotes expands, so echo "here is $var" instead of echo "here is $(echo ${var})"
• use as less temporary files as you can for example: diff <(ls dir1) <(ls dir2)
• do not keep working files in root directory (like /test/)
• do not work as root
• learn perl