universal-bash is an npm package that enables the execution of Bash scripts on Windows systems, making it as easy as running them on macOS or Linux. It provides a seamless experience for developers who need to work with Bash scripts across different operating systems.

Please note that currently, universal-bash only supports Windows. However, future updates may include support for other platforms.

To use universal-bash, simply install it as a dependency in your project by running the following command:

npm install universal-bash

in order to make it availabe anywhere, just install the package with "-g" flag.

npm install -g universal-bash

By default, universal-bash uses Git Bash, a popular bash-compatible shell for Windows, as the underlying interpreter. If the system already has bash, universal-bash will use it for script execution. However, this behavior can be disabled by setting the NOT_USE_GLOBAL_BASH environment variable to 1 during the package installation process.

NOT_USE_GLOBAL_BASH=1 npm install universal-bash

If bash is not available, universal-bash will automatically install git-bash as a local dependency to ensure compatibility.

For example, you can run the following command to install universal-bash and force the installation of a local copy of Git Bash:

Using universal-bash is straightforward. Once installed, you can execute Bash scripts on your Windows machine using the bash command. The bash command is provided by Git Bash, which is utilized by universal-bash.

To run a Bash script, open your command prompt or terminal and use the following command:

bash path/to/your/script.sh

Replace path/to/your/script.sh with the actual path to your Bash script file.

If you have installed the package as a local dependency, Bash will be available inside npm scripts. You only need to add your command to the package.json file.

{
  "scripts" : {
     "myScript" : "bash path/to/your/script.sh"
  }
}

Then you can run the script with the following command:

npm run myScript

This way, the script will be executable regardless of the operating system when someone clones the project in the future.

Contributions to universal-bash are welcome! If you encounter any issues or have suggestions for improvements, please feel free to open an issue or submit a pull request on the GitHub repository.

Please ensure that any contributions adhere to the project's coding standards and follow the guidelines outlined in the repository.

This project is licensed under the MIT License. For more information, please refer to the LICENSE file.

Thank you for choosing universal-bash! We hope it simplifies your experience with running Bash scripts on Windows. If you find it useful, please consider giving it a star on GitHub. If you have any questions, feel free to reach out to us.