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Suppose that I've got the following script called test.sh:

#! /bin/sh -
printf '%s\n' "${1:?empty or missing argument}"

When run without any command-line arguments it behaves like this:

$ ./test.sh
./test.sh: 2: ./test.sh: 1: empty or missing argument

Question: Is it possible to change the "./test.sh: 2:" part of the error message?

Mateusz Piotrowski
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    Note that ${1:?missing argument} would not check whether $1 is missing but if it's empty (and the script could be given one empty argument). For missing, you'd need ${1?missing argument} instead. In any case, if you care about the format, you might as well do it the long way like with if [ "$#" -eq 0 ]; then... (missing) or if [ -z "$1" ] (empty). – Stéphane Chazelas Aug 21 '17 at 22:02
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    @jimmij From what I read it is perfectly ok to put a space after #!. (For example in the book Classic Shell Scripting chapter 2.4 and here https://unix.stackexchange.com/q/276751/128489.) – Mateusz Piotrowski Aug 21 '17 at 23:02

1 Answers1

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The answer to your question is 'no'; using that syntax shall output the script, line number, and variable referenced to standard error as you describe. If you want to alter this, pipe standard error into a process to massage it into your desired format in a script which itself runs the script outputting the error message.

DopeGhoti
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