Shell aliases (or yml commands)

[greg-1-anderson]

We should follow the lead of Travis CI and Circle CI & c. and put simple shell scripts in our yml configuration files:

shell:
  -
    command: hello
    option: who
    default: who World
    script:
      - echo "Hello, $WHO"
  -
    command: knock:knock
    script:
      - echo "Who's there?"

Environment variables are automatically set for each defined option and argument.

We could potentially have a shortcut for Drush commands, but I'm not sure that it is necessary.

[weitzman]

Look good to me, as long as we don't need much custom code to process the yaml file and execute the script. Perhaps there is code we can bring in.

[greg-1-anderson]

Or maybe:

shell:
  -
    command: hello
    options
      who: World
      count: 1
    option-descriptions:
      who: Who to say hello to
      count: How many times to say hello
    script:
      - seq $COUNT | xargs -Iz echo "Hello, $WHO"

The question is, is either of these forms significantly simpler than a php commandfile to make this worthwhile?

[weitzman]

If we are going for a straight replacement, the existing logic is at

drush/includes/command.inc

Lines 1930 to 1996 in fd5b1c7

	function drush_shell_alias_replace($target_site_alias) {
	$escape = TRUE;
	$args = drush_get_arguments();
	$argv = drush_get_context('argv');
	$first = current($args);
	// @todo drush_get_option is awkward here.
	$shell_aliases = drush_get_context('shell-aliases', array());
	if (isset($shell_aliases[$first])) {
	// Shell alias found for first argument in the request.
	$alias_value = $shell_aliases[$first];
	if (!is_array($alias_value)) {
	// Shell aliases can have embedded variables such as {{@target}} and {{%root}}
	// that are replaced with the name of the target site alias, or the value of a
	// path alias defined in the target site alias record. We only support replacements
	// when the alias value is a string; if it is already broken out into an array,
	// then the values therein are used literally.
	$alias_variables = array( '{{@target}}' => '@none' );
	if ($target_site_alias) {
	$alias_variables = array( '{{@target}}' => $target_site_alias );
	$target = drush_sitealias_get_record($target_site_alias);
	foreach ($target as $key => $value) {
	if (!is_array($value)) {
	$alias_variables['{{' . $key . '}}'] = $value;
	}
	}
	if (array_key_exists('path-aliases', $target)) {
	foreach ($target['path-aliases'] as $key => $value) {
	// n.b. $key will contain something like "%root" or "%files".
	$alias_variables['{{' . $key . '}}'] = $value;
	}
	}
	}
	$alias_value = str_replace(array_keys($alias_variables), array_values($alias_variables), $alias_value);
	// Check for unmatched replacements
	$matches = array();
	$match_result = preg_match('/{{[%@#]*[a-z0-9.]*}}/', $alias_value, $matches);
	if ($match_result) {
	$unmatched_replacements = implode(', ', $matches);
	$unmatched_replacements = preg_replace('/[{}]/', '', $unmatched_replacements);
	return drush_set_error('DRUSH_SHELL_ALIAS_UNMATCHED_REPLACEMENTS', dt('The shell alias @alias-name uses replacements "@unmatched". You must use this command with a site alias (e.g. `drush @myalias @alias-name ...`) that defines all of these variables.', array('@alias-name' => $first, '@unmatched' => $unmatched_replacements)));
	}
	if (substr($alias_value, 0, 1) == '!') {
	$alias_value = ltrim($alias_value, '!');
	$alias_value = array('core-execute', $alias_value);
	$escape = FALSE;
	}
	else {
	// Respect quoting. See http://stackoverflow.com/questions/2202435/php-ex
	$alias_value = str_getcsv($alias_value, ' ');
	}
	}
	drush_log(dt('Shell alias found: !key => !value', array('!key' => $first, '!value' => implode(' ', $alias_value))), LogLevel::DEBUG);
	$pos = array_search($first, $argv);
	$number = 1;
	if ($target_site_alias && ($argv[$pos - 1] == $target_site_alias)) {
	--$pos;
	++$number;
	}
	array_splice($argv, $pos, $number, $alias_value);
	if (!$escape) {
	drush_set_option('escape', FALSE);
	}
	drush_set_context('argv', $argv);
	drush_parse_args();
	_drush_preflight_global_options();
	}
	}

[weitzman]

Here is drush9 equivalent of config-list drush config-status --operation=all --format=list

[johnpitcairn]

What is the current status of this? I'm currently pegged at drush 9.0-beta4, which appears to be the last version that supports old-style drushrc.php shell command aliases.

I'm very conscious that is not an ideal situation, but I depend fairly heavily on some custom pull-production (etc) shell aliases for my current workflow.

[weitzman]

No update unfortunately. Its an open feature request. I suggest using bash aliases and drush commands/scripts to transition from drush shell aliases.

[greg-1-anderson]

You could also consider using a similar service such as ahoy-cli

[johnpitcairn]

Thanks @greg-1-anderson . I looked at Ahoy but at present I'm all about reducing lateral dependencies, so anything that needs a custom install per platform is really a no-go. Ideally Drush would continue to handle this via an optional composer dependency. I don't especially care whether I would need to rewrite the existing PHP script definitions as YML, I'd just like to be able to do so.

@weitzman : Yeah. But then everyone is back to rolling their own solution in bash or cli-php or whatever, and isn't that what Drush was designed to avoid for the slightly savvy site builder?

[greg-1-anderson]

The status here is "PRs welcome". Someone just needs to feel it is important enough to spend the effort.

[generalredneck]

So instead of shell aliases... the current workaround is to go ahead and write a custom command that calls the shell correct?

The reason I ask is because I rely on drush shell aliases because they are typically supported on hosting environments where calling shell via ssh or other means are not... example I can do something like drush deploy and it's something like drush updb; drush cim -y; drush cr; all in one for D8 and drush rr; drush updb -y; drush cc all; drush fra -y; drush cc all; for D7... and it's consistent so that anyone deploying only has to know the 1 command.

[greg-1-anderson]

@generalredneck I use composer scripts for that purpose. Writing simple Drush commands in php is another option.

If someone did want to make a PR for this, perhaps it should be a feature of Robo / consolidation/config.

[weitzman]

Also, I've used Ahoy for yaml aliases

[weitzman]

Not a burning need for this.