bpkg

JavaScript has npm, Ruby has Gems, Python has pip and now Shell has bpkg!

bpkg is a lightweight bash package manager. It takes care of fetching the shell scripts, installing them appropriately, setting the execution permission and more.

You can install shell scripts globally (on /usr/local/bin) or use them on a per-project basis (on ./deps/), as a lazy-man "copy and paste".

Install

You can install bpkg from three distinct ways:

0. Dependencies

• curl
• coreutils

1. Install script

Our install script is the simplest way. It takes care of everything for you, placing bpkg and related scripts on /usr/local/bin.

Paste the following on your shell and you're good to go:

$ curl -Lo- http://get.bpkg.io | bash

2. clib

clib is a package manager for C projects. If you already have it, installing bpkg is a simple matter of:

$ clib install bpkg/bpkg

3. Source Code

To directly install bpkg from it's source code you have to clone it's repository and install with make:

$ git clone https://github.com/bpkg/bpkg.git
$ cd bpkg
$ make install

Or in a directory with user write permission, like $HOME/opt/bin

$ git clone https://github.com/bpkg/bpkg.git
$ cd bpkg
$ PREFIX=$HOME/opt make install

Usage

You use bpkg by simply sending commands, pretty much like npm or pip.

Installing packages

Packages can either be global (on /usr/local/bin) or local (under ./deps).

For example, here's a global install of the term package:

$ bpkg install term -g
$ term

And the same package as a local install:

$ bpkg install term
$ ./deps/term/term.sh

After a local install the term.sh script is copied as term to the deps/bin directory, you can add this directory to the PATH with

export PATH=$PATH:/path_to_bkpg/deps/bin

As a bonus, you can specify a specific version:

$ bpkg install jwerle/suggest.sh@0.0.1 -g

Note: to do that the packages must be tagged releases on the repository.

You can also installing packages without a package.json. As long as there is a Makefile in the repository it will try to invoke make install so long as the -g or --global flags are set when invoking bpkg install.

For example you could install git-standup with an omitted package.json because of the Makefile and the install target found in it.

$ bpkg install stephenmathieson/git-standup -g

    info: Using latest (master)
    warn: Package doesn't exist
    warn: Mssing build script
    warn: Trying `make install'...
    info: install: `make install'
cp -f git-standup /usr/local/bin

Retrieving package info

After installing a package, you can obtain info from it using bpkg.

Supposing you're on the root of a package directory, the following commands show that package metadata:

# Asking for single information
$ bpkg package name
 "bpkg"
$ bpkg package version
 "0.0.5"
# Dumping all the metadata
$ bpkg package
["name"]        "bpkg"
["version"]     "0.0.5"
["description"] "Lightweight bash package manager"
["global"]      true
["install"]     "make install"

Package details

Here we lay down some info on the structure of a package.

package.json

Every package must have a file called package.json; it specifies package metadata on the JSON format.

Here's an example of a well-formed package.json:

{
  "name": "term",
  "version": "0.0.1",
  "description": "Terminal utility functions",
  "scripts": [ "term.sh" ],
  "install": "make install"
}

All fields are mandatory except when noted. Here's a detailed explanation on all fields:

name

The name attribute is required as it is used to tell bpkg where to put it in the deps/ directory in you project.

  "name": "my-script"

version (optional)

The version attribute is not required but can be useful. It should correspond to the version that is associated with the installed package.

  "version": "0.0.1"

description

A human readable description of what the package offers for functionality.

  "description": "This script makes monkeys jump out of your keyboard"

global

Indicates that the package is only intended to be install as a script. This allows the ommition of the -g or --global flag during installation.

  "global": "true"

install

Shell script used to invoke in the install script. This is required if the global attribute is set to true or if the -g or --global flags are provided.

  "install": "make install"

scripts

This is an array of scripts that will be installed into a project.

  "scripts": ["script.sh"]

Packaging best practices

These are guidelines that we strongly encourage developers to follow.

Package exports

It's nice to have a bash package that can be used in the terminal and also be invoked as a command line function. To achieve this the exporting of your functionality should follow this pattern:

if [[ ${BASH_SOURCE[0]} != $0 ]]; then
  export -f my_script
else
  my_script "${@}"
  exit $?
fi

This allows a user to source your script or invoke as a script.

# Running as a script
$ ./my_script.sh some args --blah
# Sourcing the script
$ source my_script.sh
$ my_script some more args --blah

Sponsors

bpkg wouldn't be where it is today without the help of its authors, contributors, and sponsors:

• @littlstar (littlstar.com)
• @spotify (spotify.com)

License

bpkg is released under the MIT license.

See file LICENSE for a more detailed description of it's terms.