How to use traps and error-handling options in Bash

How to use traps and error-handling options in Bash

https://www.howtogeek.com/bash-error-handling-patterns-i-use-in-every-script/

Publish Date: 2026-01-31 06:30:00

Source Domain: www.howtogeek.com

Are you learning Bash or wishing to improve error handling in your scripts? The rules governing errors can be a little tricky to understand, so I’ve put together this bite-sized guide to untangle their mystery.

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The initial pattern I learned—and often the first recommended—is the set -e option. It simply makes your script exit when it detects a non-zero exit code. For those unaware, an exit code is a number returned by all programs on Linux, and when it’s non-zero, it’s an error. You can see the exit code of the most recently exited process with echo $?.

Let’s look at a few examples.

When everything is okay:

#!/usr/bin/env bash
ls /
echo Exit code: $?

…

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