Interview › Scripting (Bash, Groovy)
How do you write and call a function in Bash? [Basic]
Answer
A Bash function is a reusable block defined as name() { commands; } or function name { commands; }. I call it by writing its name followed by arguments, just like a command.
Technical explanation
Functions share the shell process with the caller, so they can read variables, set globals, and return statuses.
Use local variables inside functions to avoid accidental global state changes.
Functions improve readability when a script has validation, logging, cleanup, retries, and separate action steps.
Hands-on example
log() { printf '[%s] %s\n' "$(date +%F_%T)" "$*"}
deploy() { local env="$1" log "deploying to $env"}
deploy prod
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