Vjylku

So I have written a bash script which create series of directories and clone a project to selected directories. But for that I need to cd to each directory (project 1 and project 2) but script doesn't cd to the second directory and execute the command. Instead, it stops after cd and cloning in theproject2 directory. Why it doesn't call the cd_project1 function in following code?

   #!/bin/bash

   #Get the current user name 



    function my_user_name() {        

    current_user=$USER

    echo " Current user is $current_user"

    }



    #Creating useful directories



    function create_useful_directories() {  

      if [[ ! -d "$scratch" ]]; then

      echo "creating relevant directory"

      mkdir -p /home/"$current_user"/Downloads/scratch/"$current_user"/project1/project2

      else

         echo "scratch directory already exists"

         :

      fi

    }



#Going to project2 and cloning 



    function cd_project2() {



      cd /home/"$current_user"/Downloads/scratch/"$current_user"/project1/project2 &&

      git clone https://username@bitbucket.org/teamsinspace/documentation-tests.git

      exec bash

    }



#Going to project1 directory and cloning 

    function cd_project1() {



      cd /home/"$current_user"/Downloads/scratch/"$current_user"/project1/ &&

      git clone https://username@bitbucket.org/teamsinspace/documentation-tests.git

      exec bash



    }



 #Running the functions  

    function main() {



      my_user_name

      create_useful_directories

      cd_project2

      cd_project1    

    }

    main



    #Terminal output        

    ~/Downloads$. ./bash_install_script.sh    

    Current user is mihi

    creating relevant directory

    Cloning into 'documentation-tests'...

    remote: Counting objects: 125, done.

    remote: Compressing objects: 100% (115/115), done.

    remote: Total 125 (delta 59), reused 0 (delta 0)

    Receiving objects: 100% (125/125), 33.61 KiB | 362.00 KiB/s, done.

    Resolving deltas: 100% (59/59), done.

    ~/Downloads/scratch/mihi/project1/project2$

The culprits are your exec bash statements in some of your functions.
The exec statement is a bit weird and not easily understood in the first place.
It means: execute the following command instead of the currently running
command/shell/script from here on. That is: it replaces the current shell
script (in your case) with an instance of bash and it never returns.

You can try this out with a shell and issue

exec sleep 5

This will replace your current shell (the bash) with the command sleep 5
and when that command returns (after 5 seconds) your window will close because
the shell has been replaced with sleep 5.

Same with your script: If you put exec something into your script, the script
gets replaced with something and when that something stops execution, the
whole script stops.

Simply dropping the exec bash statements should do.

From help exec:

exec: exec [-cl] [-a name] [command [arguments ...]] [redirection ...]

    Replace the shell with the given command.



    Execute COMMAND, replacing this shell with the specified program.

    ARGUMENTS become the arguments to COMMAND.  If COMMAND is not specified,

    any redirections take effect in the current shell.

The key word here is replace - if you exec bash from inside a script, no further script execution can occur.