How to save an exit code to a variable in bash script to return after cleaning up resources

I had to save the exit code from one part of the script that runs a suite of tests, then run some cleanup and finally return the exit code received previously from the tests.

I haven’t used bash scripts too often in my work so when I had to do this recently I had to spend some time looking up syntax.

This will fail the tests correctly in our Azure Devops pipeline while still cleaning up the docker containers.

The script

The part I found difficult here was the escaping. Sometimes you need double quotes and other times it’s just the variable. This is a reference in case I ever have to do this again!

Note that to run this you will have to give it permissions chmod 755 myscript.sh

#!/bin/bash main (){ docker-compose run node exitCode=$? echo "exitCode will be $exitCode" } setup(){ yarn docker-compose up -d chromedriver docker ps -a } tearDown(){ docker-compose down docker system prune -f } setup main tearDown exit "$exitCode"