Is there a static analysis tool like Lint or Perl::Critic for shell scripts?

Question

Are there any shell (specifically bash or ksh) checkers that test shell scripts for style, best practices, naming conventions, etc? (Something like Lint for C, or Perl::Critic for Perl.)

I know with ksh you can do syntax checking by running ksh -n script.ksh but I was hoping for something more than just sytax checking - something that parses/analyzes the actual code?

I'm probably out of luck, but I guess it doesn't hurt to ask.

Answer 1

I found shellcheck: it tests for common errors in quoting and other things you overlook ("because it works").

Answer 2

The Debian and Ubuntu projects use a script checkbashisms, that looks for particular patterns that might indicate that someone is relying on /bin/sh being bash.

Beyond that, most shells have a -n option to parse and report errors. You could check your script against several different shells to make sure it uses only portable syntax:

for shell in zsh ksh bash dash sh do   echo "Testing ${shell}"   ${shell} -n my_script.sh done 

edit to add: Since writing this answer, shellcheck has been written, as suggested in a later answer. This does a much more thorough job of linting shell scripts than the previous suggestions.