The Linux Daily

Allow Ctrl+C Escape or Interrupts in Shell Script Using Traps

Just ran across this today while looking at a script one of my colleges wrote. You can use bash traps to monitor for user input like Ctrl+C. Here’s an example taken from the Linux Dev Center (use the link to read more about it):

#!/bin/sh
# zpg - UNCOMPRESS FILE, DISPLAY WITH pg
# Usage: zpg file
stat=1  # DEFAULT EXIT STATUS; RESET TO 0 BEFORE NORMAL EXIT
temp=/tmp/zpg$$
trap 'rm -f $temp; exit $stat' 0
trap 'echo "`basename $0`: Ouch! Quitting early." 1>&2' 1 2 15

case $# in
1) gzcat "$1" >$temp
   pg $temp
   stat=0
   ;;
*) echo "Usage: `basename $0` filename" 1>&2 ;;
esac