How can I print each command before executing? [duplicate]

Answer 1

set -x is fine, but if you do something like:

set -x;
command;
set +x;

it would result in printing

+ command
+ set +x;

You can use a subshell to prevent that such as:

(set -x; command)

which would just print the command.

Answer 2

set -x is fine.

Another way to print each executed command is to use trap with DEBUG. Put this line at the beginning of your script :

trap 'echo "# $BASH_COMMAND"' DEBUG

You can find a lot of other trap usages here.

Answer 3

set -o xtrace

or

bash -x myscript.sh

This works with standard /bin/sh as well IIRC (it might be a POSIX thing then)

And remember, there is bashdb (bash Shell Debugger, release 4.0-0.4)

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To revert to normal, exit the subshell or

set +o xtrace

Answer 4

The easiest way to do this is to let bash do it:

set -x

Or run it explicitly as bash -x myscript.