Rosetta Stone

A tabulated list of Bashism's and their equivalent Murex syntax

Rosetta stone

Below is a reference table of common Bash code and how it could be written in Murex.

It is also recommended that you read the language tour if you want to learn more about shell scripting in Murex.

Output & error streams

Description	Bash	Murex
Write to STDOUT	echo "Hello Bash"	out "Hello Murex" echo "Hello Murex" [1]
Write to STDERR	echo "Hello Bash" >2	err "Hello Murex"
Write to file (truncate)	echo "Hello Bash" > hello.txt	echo "Hello Murex" |> hello.txt
Write to file (append)	echo "Hello Bash" >> hello.txt	echo "Hello Murex" >> hello.txt
Pipe commands	echo "Hello Bash" | grep Bash	echo "Hello Murex" | grep Murex out "Hello Murex" -> regexp m/Murex/
Redirect errors to STDOUT	curl murex.rocks 2>&1 | less	curl <!out> murex.rocks | less
Redirect output to STDERR	uname -a >&2	uname <err> -a
Ignore STDERR output	echo something 2>/dev/null	echo <!null> something
Output ANSI colors and styles	echo -e "\n\032[0m\033[1mComplete!\033[0m\n"	out "{GREEN}{BOLD}Complete!{RESET}"

Quoting strings

Description	Bash	Murex
Infixing	echo "Hello $SHELL"	out "Hello $SHELL"
String literals	echo 'Hello' $SHELL	out 'Hello' $SHELL
Nesting quotes	echo 'Hello \'Bob\''	out %(Hello 'Bob')

Process management

Description	Bash	Murex
Exit number	$?	exitnum
Background jobs	command &	bg { command }
Job control	ps, jobs, bg pid, fg pid	fid-list, jobs, bg fid, fg fid
Happy paths	command && command	command && command try {command; command}
Unhappy paths	command || command	command || command try {command}; catch {command}
Pipe fail	set -o pipefail	runmode trypipe module runmode trypipe function trypipe { commands }

Comments

Description	Bash	Murex
Single line	# comment	# comment
Multiple lines	:<<EOC line 1 line 2 EOC	/# line 1 line 2 #/
Mid-line	n/a	eg out foo/#comment#/bar

File pattern matching

(also known as "wildcards")

Description	Bash	Murex
Globbing	eg ls *.txt	eg ls *.txt (in the interactive terminal) g pattern eg ls @{g *.txt}
Regexp	n/a	rx pattern eg ls @{rx '*\\.txt'}
File type matching	n/a	f flags eg f +s (only return symlinks)
Chaining	n/a	eg f +f | g *.txt | !g murex.* (returns only files with the extension "txt" that aren't called "murex")

Expressions

Description	Bash	Murex
Assignment	foobar = $((1 + 2 * 3))	foobar = 1 + 2 * 3 [2]
Comparison, string	[ "$(command parameters...)" == "value" ]	command(parameters...) == "value" [2] [7] ${command parameters...} == "value" [2] [5]
Comparison, numeric	[ $integer -eq 5 ]	$number == 5 [2]
Arithmetic	echo $(( 1+2*3 ))	1 + 2 * 3 [2] out (1+2*3) [2] [5]
Supported data types	1. String, 2. Integer (all variables are strings)	1. String, 2. Integer, 3. Float (default number type), 4. Boolean 5. Array, 6. Object, 7. Null (all variables can be treated as strings and/or their primitive)

Variables

Description	Bash	Murex
Printing a variable	echo "$foobar"	out $foobar [5] $foobar (variables don't need to be quoted in Murex)
Assign a local variable	local foo="bar"	$foo = "bar" [2] [6] out "bar" | set $foo
Assign a global variable	foo="bar"	$GLOBAL.foo = "bar" [6] out "bar" | global $foo
Assign an environmental variable	export foo="bar"	export foo = "bar" [1] [2] [3] $ENV.foo = "bar" [6] out "bar" | export $foo [3]
Assign with a default value	FOOBAR="${VARIABLE:-default}"	$foobar = $variable ?? "default"

Arrays

(eg arrays, lists)

Description	Bash	Murex
Creating an array	array_name=(value1 value2 value3)	%[value1 value2 value3] %[value1, value2, value3] eg array_name = %[1, 2, 3], eg %[hello world] | foreach { ... }
Accessing an array element	${array_name[0]}	$array_name[0] (immutable) $array_name.0 (mutable) [5] array | [0]
Printing multiple elements	echo ${array_name[1]} ${array_name[0]}	@array_name[1 0] array | [1 0]
Printing a range of elements	n/a	@array_name[1..3] array | [1..3]
Printing all elements	echo ${array_name[*]}	@array_name
Iterating through an array	for item in array; do;     $item done;	array | foreach item { $item } eg %[Tom Richard Sally] | foreach name { out "Hello $name" }

Objects

(eg JSON objects, maps, hashes, dictionaries)

Description	Bash	Murex
Creating an object	n/a	%{ key: value, array: [1, 2, 3] } [2] eg object_name = %{ key: val, arr: [1,3,3] } eg %{ a:1, b:2, c:3 } | formap { ... }
Accessing an element	n/a	$object_name[key] (immutable) $object_name.key [5] (mutable) object | [key]
Printing multiple elements	n/a	$object_name[key1 key2] object | [key1 key2]
Accessing a nested element	n/a	$object_name[[.path.to.element]] (immutable) [4] $object_name.path.to.element (mutable) object | [[.path.to.element]] [4]
Iterating through an map	n/a	object | formap key value { $key; $value } eg %{Bob: {age: 10}, Richard: {age: 20}, Sally: {age: 30} } | formap name person { out "$name is $person[age] years old" }

Sub-shells

Description	Bash	Murex
Sub-shell, string	"$(commands)" eg "echo $(echo "Hello world")"	${commands} [5] eg out ${out Hello world}
Sub-shell, arrays	$(commands) eg $(echo 1 2 3)	@{commands} [5] eg out @{ %[1,2,3] }
In-lined functions	n/a	function(parameters...) [7] eg out uname(-a)

Common one-liners

Description	Bash	Murex
Add $PATH entries	export PATH="$PATH:/usr/local/bin:$HOME/bin"	The same Bash code works in Murex too. However you can also take advantage of Murex treating $PATH as an array %[ @PATH /usr/local/bin "$HOME/bin" ] | format paths | export $PATH
Iterate directories	for i in $(find . -maxdepth 1 -mindepth 1 -type d); do     echo $i done	f +d | foreach $dir {     out $i }
If $dir exists...	if [ -d "$dir" ]; then     # exists fi	if { g $dir | f +d } then {     # exists }
Print current directory	result=${PWD##*/}; result=${result:-/}; printf '%s' "${PWD##*/}" (read more)	$PWD[-1]

Footnotes

1. Supported for compatibility with traditional shells like Bash.
2. Unlike Bash, whitespace (or the absence of) is optional.
3. Environmental variables can only be stored as a string. This is a limitation of current operating systems.
4. Path separator can be any 1 byte wide character, eg /. The path separator is defined by the first character in a path.
5. Murex uses ${} for subshells and $() for variables, the reverse of what Bash and others use. The reason for this difference is because {} always denotes a code block and () denotes strings. So ${foobar} makes more sense as a subshell executing the command foobar, while $(foobar) makes more sense as the variable $foobar.
6. When assigning a variable where the right hand side is an expression, eg $foo = "bar", the dollar prefix is optional. The set, global and export keywords are considered deprecated.
7. The command(parameters...) only works for commands who's names match the following regexp pattern: [._a-zA-Z0-9]+. Which is exclusively uppercase and lowercase English letters, numbers, fullstop / period, and underscore.

See Also

• Array (@) Token: Expand values as an array
• Named Pipes: A detailed breakdown of named pipes in Murex
• Terminal Hotkeys: A list of all the terminal hotkeys and their uses
• && And Logical Operator: Continues next operation if previous operation passes
• >> Append File: Writes STDIN to disk - appending contents if file already exists
• >> Append Pipe: Redirects STDOUT to a file and append its contents
• [ ..Range ]: Outputs a ranged subset of data from STDIN
• [[ Element ]]: Outputs an element from a nested structure
• runmode: Alter the scheduler's behaviour at higher scoping level
• string (stringing): string (primitive)
• try: Handles non-zero exits inside a block of code
• trypipe: Checks for non-zero exits of each function in a pipeline
• |> Truncate File: Writes STDIN to disk - overwriting contents if file already exists
• || Or Logical Operator: Continues next operation only if previous operation fails
• index: Outputs an element from an array, map or table

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This document was generated from gen/user-guide/rosetta-stone_doc.yaml.