zxpy

Shell scripts made simple 🐚

Inspired by Google's zx, but made much simpler and more accessible using Python.

Rationale

Bash is cool, and it's extremely powerful when paired with linux coreutils and pipes. But apart from that, it's a whole another language to learn, and has a (comparatively) unintuitive syntax for things like conditionals and loops.

zxpy aims to supercharge bash by allowing you to write scripts in Python, but with native support for bash commands and pipes:

#! /usr/bin/env zxpy
todo_comments = ~"git grep -n TODO"
for todo in todo_comments.splitlines():
    filename, lineno, code = todo.split(':', 2)
    *_, comment = code.partition('TODO')
    print(f"{filename:<40} on line {lineno:<4}: {comment.lstrip(': ')}")

Running this, we get:

$ ./todo_check.py
README.md                                on line 154 : move this content somewhere more sensible.
instachat/lib/models/message.dart        on line 7   : rename to uuid
instachat/lib/models/update.dart         on line 13  : make int
instachat/lib/services/chat_service.dart on line 211 : error handling
server/api/api.go                        on line 94  : move these to /chat/@:address
server/api/user.go                       on line 80  : check for errors instead of relying on zero value

Installation

pip install zxpy

Example

Make a file script.py (The name and extension can be anything):

#! /usr/bin/env zxpy
~'echo Hello world!'

file_count = ~'ls -1 | wc -l'
print("file count is:", file_count)

And then run it:

$ chmod +x ./script.py

$ ./script.py
Hello world!
file count is: 3

Run >>> help('zxpy') in Python REPL to find out more ways to use zxpy.

A more involved example: run_all_tests.py

#! /usr/bin/env zxpy
test_files = ~"find -name '*_test\.py'"

for filename in test_files.splitlines():
    try:
        print(f'Running {filename:.<50}', end='')
        output = ~f'python {filename}'  # variables in your shell commands :D
        assert output == ''
        print('Test passed!')
    except:
        print(f'Test failed.')

Output:

$ ./run_all_tests.py
Running ./tests/python_version_test.py....................Test failed.
Running ./tests/platform_test.py..........................Test passed!
Running ./tests/imports_test.py...........................Test passed!

Examples are all in the examples folder.

Interactive mode

$ zxpy
zxpy shell
Python 3.8.5 (default, Jan 27 2021, 15:41:15)
[GCC 9.3.0]

>>> ~"ls | grep '\.py'"
__main__.py
setup.py
zx.py
>>>

Also works with path/to/python -m zx

It can also be used to start a zxpy session in an already running REPL. Simply do:

>>> import zx; zx.start()

and zxpy should be enabled in the existing session.

Release files for zxpy 1.1.1

For a detailed explanation of source distributions (sdists) and built distributions (wheels), please see the package formats documentation.

Source distribution (sdist)

Source distribution for zxpy 1.1.1
File	Size	Uploaded
zxpy-1.1.1.tar.gz	5.5 kB	May 10, 2021	Details

Built distribution (wheel)

Table of built distributions (wheels) for zxpy 1.1.1
File	Interpreter	ABI	Platform	Reset
zxpy-1.1.1-py3-none-any.whl 5.6 kB May 10, 2021	Python 3	none	any	Details

Total release size: 11.1 kB

Release files / zxpy-1.1.1.tar.gz

Download URL	zxpy-1.1.1.tar.gz
Size	5.5 kB
Tags	Source
SHA-256 checksum How to use checksums	`ca1456b5c04e44c86e190a9a519ea949625ad612ba7eecd477643a06b0945c20`
BLAKE2b-256 checksum How to use checksums	`239472747ecbf2df2bf8bf7fc3dd1e447f67b6dd1f585aa27ff1082bd2818e73`
Upload date	May 10, 2021
Uploaded using Trusted Publishing? What is trusted publishing?	No
Uploaded via	`twine/3.3.0 pkginfo/1.7.0 requests/2.22.0 setuptools/45.2.0 requests-toolbelt/0.9.1 tqdm/4.58.0 CPython/3.9.5`

Release files / zxpy-1.1.1-py3-none-any.whl

Download URL	zxpy-1.1.1-py3-none-any.whl
Size	5.6 kB
Tags	Python 3
SHA-256 checksum How to use checksums	`54e2cf823ffab6ae25bf7fe72bd02545c7636ef1ed2456a59e7ab9ce2c5e1aea`
BLAKE2b-256 checksum How to use checksums	`354739e1799156d00f408bf4a8e0a10f1de66c95275e27e40d1134c29fb40a4e`
Upload date	May 10, 2021
Uploaded using Trusted Publishing? What is trusted publishing?	No
Uploaded via	`twine/3.3.0 pkginfo/1.7.0 requests/2.22.0 setuptools/45.2.0 requests-toolbelt/0.9.1 tqdm/4.58.0 CPython/3.9.5`