Dont Rely on Positional Args

Don’t Rely on Passing Arguments

# Instead of assuming the order of the values was provided as desired like `args` in python
# Rely on `"${@}"1 like kwargs in python

#!/bin/bash
## reads in name and age, has boolean flag "--reset" which changes age to be 1
source functions.sh
get_params "${@}"

# Each of thuese results in the below

./main.sh --name joe --reset --age 25
./main.sh --age 25 --name joe --reset

#> NAME="joe"
#> AGE="25"
#> RESET="true"

Easily Check Your Positional Arguments

name=${1:?"Error: parameter missing Name"}
age=${2:?"Error: parameter missing Age"}

./main joe
#> Error: parameter missing Age

Create a Default Value for a Variable

echo "enter your name"
read name
name=${name:-Unknown}

If a user enters blank, your $name will be set to Unknown. The dash after the colon provides a default fallback value.