A lightweight quick and dirty tool to generate shell scripts that can recreate directory structures. It creates human-readable shell scripts that preserve both the content and structure of directories. Just an easily editable/portabe option to get over the boilerplate and put files into hard to reach places.

• Low Dependencies: Uses only standard Go libraries
• Human-Readable Output: Generated scripts are easy to read and understand
• File Handling:
  • Text files are preserved using escaped heredoc strings
  • Binary files are encoded in base64 with SHA256 hash verification
  • Empty files are handled efficiently
  • File permissions are preserved
• Unix Philosophy: Supports both file output and stdout for pipeline operations
• Flexible Usage: Can be used for backup, deployment, or configuration management
• Testing: For more info regarding file support see "./test/create__example_folder.sh"

• links aren't preserved
• large files don't work very well

• [] binary mode to make viewing and patching many hex files easy
• [] option to use tar.gz file as a container (preserve links and other things)
• [] option to make an additional layer of script to contain the main script so that the first execution doesn't extract the directory, only place a self extracting file ready to execute manually (useful when wanting more control over pasting)
• [] option to silence more output (can make output faster)
• [] option to check the folder size before running (it doesn't check, you will probably have trouble with large folders)
• [] add option to create a powershell version

sudo touch /usr/local/bin/shellbale
sudo chmod +x /usr/local/bin/shellbale
# Linux
sudo wget -O /usr/local/bin/shellbale https://github.com/ahostwin/shellbale/releases/download/v0.0.3/shellbale-linux-x86_64

# All links
sudo wget -O /usr/local/bin/shellbale https://github.com/ahostwin/shellbale/releases/download/v0.0.3/shellbale-linux-arm64
sudo wget -O /usr/local/bin/shellbale https://github.com/ahostwin/shellbale/releases/download/v0.0.3/shellbale-linux-x86_64
sudo wget -O /usr/local/bin/shellbale https://github.com/ahostwin/shellbale/releases/download/v0.0.3/shellbale-mac-arm64
sudo wget -O /usr/local/bin/shellbale https://github.com/ahostwin/shellbale/releases/download/v0.0.3/shellbale-mac-x86_64

# Windows
Invoke-WebRequest -Outfile "shellbale.exe" -Uri https://github.com/ahostwin/shellbale/releases/download/v0.0.3/shellbale-win-x86_64.exe
Unblock-File "shellbale.exe"

# Clone the repository
git clone https://github.com/ahostwin/shellbale/shellbale.git
cd shellbale

# Build for all platforms
./build.sh

# or simply build for your own platform
cd src
go build

# Optional: Install to system (requires root)
sudo cp dist/shellbale /usr/local/bin/
sudo cp src/shellbale.1 /usr/share/man/man1/

Basic usage pattern:

shellbale -i INPUT_DIR [-o OUTPUT_SCRIPT]

1. Create a backup script for a folder:

shellbale -t -i ./my_project -o backup_project.sh
shellbale -t -i ./my_project > backup_project.sh

2. Generate and pipe directly to clipboard (then paste into terminal and hit enter to execute):

shellbale -t -i ~/.config | xclip -sel clip #(Linux: apt install xclip)
shellbale -t -i ~/.config | pbcopy #(Mac)
shellbale -t -i ~/.config | clip #(Windows)
shellbale -t -i ~/.config > /dev/clipboard #(Cygwin)

3. Refactor/patch/rename files and contents:

shellbale -i /etc -t | sed 's/hostname_keywordtag_1234/exmaplehostname/g' > provision_etc.sh
pushd $(mktemp -d) && exec $(shellbale -i $(pwd)/../app -t | -E 's/\bExample\b/Changed/g; s/\bexample\b/changed/g; s/\bEXAMPLE\b/CHANGED/g')

4. Generate and pipe directly to a remote host:

shellbale -i ./deployment | ssh remote_host "cat > deploy.sh"

• -h, --help: Show help message
• -v, --version: Show program version
• -i, --input DIR: Input directory to process
• -o, --output FILE: Output script path (optional, defaults to stdout)
• -t, --tree: Include ASCII tree representation (optional flag)

1. Directory Structure: The program walks through the input directory and generates commands to recreate the directory structure.

2. File Processing:

   • Directories are created using mkdir -p
   • Empty files are created using touch
   • Text files are embedded using escaped heredoc strings
   • Binary files are encoded in base64 with SHA256 hash verification

3. File Types:

   • Text files are detected by analyzing their content
   • Binary files are identified by the presence of null bytes or high concentration of non-printable characters
   • File permissions are preserved using chmod

The generated shell scripts follow this pattern:

#!/bin/sh
# built using shellbale version X.Y.Z

# Create directory structure
mkdir -p "path/to/dir"

# Handle text file
FILEPATH="path/to/file.txt"
touch "$FILEPATH"
chmod +x "$FILEPATH"  # if executable
cat <<\__EOF_TXT_1234567890 > "$FILEPATH"
... file contents ...

__EOF_TXT_1234567890

# Handle binary file
FILEPATH="path/to/file.bin"
touch "$FILEPATH"
EXPECTED_HASH=... # SHA256 hash
cat <<'__EOF_BIN_1234567890' | base64 -d > "$FILEPATH"
... base64 encoded content ...

__EOF_BIN_1234567890
# Verify hash
COMPUTED_HASH=$(sha256sum "$FILEPATH" | cut -d' ' -f1)
if [ "$COMPUTED_HASH" = "$EXPECTED_HASH" ]; then
    : # Hash matches
else
    echo "Hash does not match for $FILEPATH!"
    exit 1
fi

• If all you need is to copy a directory using a clipboard
• if you just want the text, remove "|xclip -sel clip"

#/bin/sh
# tar.sh <FOLDERPATH>
FOLDERPATH=$1
cat <<__EOF_TAR_DOT_SH | xclip -sel clip
cat <<\__TX_EOF_TAR_DO_SH | base64 -d | tar -xf -
$(tar -cf - "$FOLDERPATH" | base64 -w0)
__TX_EOF_TAR_DO_SH
__EOF_TAR_DOT_SH

Contributions are welcome! Please feel free to submit a Pull Request.

This project is licensed under the GNU Lesser General Public License v3.0 - see the LICENSE file for details.