👀 Views: 1411 💬 Answers: 1 📅 Created: 2025-07-15

bash trap error-handling

I've searched everywhere and can't find a clear answer. I'm working with an scenario with a Bash script that makes extensive use of the `trap` command for behavior handling. My script is structured with nested functions, and I set traps in both the outer and inner functions. However, the expected behavior when a command fails does not occur, leading to unexpected exit statuses. For example, I have the following code: ```bash #!/bin/bash function outer_function() { trap 'echo "behavior in outer_function"; exit 1' ERR inner_function } function inner_function() { trap 'echo "behavior in inner_function"; exit 2' ERR # Simulating a command that fails command_that_fails } outer_function ``` When `command_that_fails` fails, I would expect it to trigger the `trap` in `inner_function`. Instead, it seems to be bypassing this and not executing the inner trap, leading to the script exiting without the behavior message for the inner function. I've tried checking the exit statuses at various points and using `set -e`, but this causes the entire script to exit before reaching the traps. My Bash version is 5.1.4(1)-release. Is there a way to handle errors in nested functions properly while maintaining effective traps? What am I missing? For reference, this is a production REST API. Is there a simpler solution I'm overlooking?