POSIX shell function to “dump” all given arguments

Question

My today's idea was to create a POSIX shell function to dump all given arguments, typical use would be to call it from a fucntion, where you already know some arguments are not well set (empty; not integer) and this way you can inspect all given arguments in one go. It reminds me of a PHP var_dump function. :) Would anyone be able to find weak spots in there, all input is welcome.

---

#!/bin/sh

dump_arguments ()
# string function - prints arguments (position and content)
# indicates empty arguments and integer numbers
{
    printf '%b' "dump_arguments()\\n----------------\\n$# arguments are being inspected"
    [ $# -gt 0 ] && { printf ':\n'; i=1; } || printf '.\n'
    while [ $# -gt 0 ]; do
        printf '%s' "[$i]: '$1'"
        [ -z "$1" ] && printf ' (empty)'
        [ "$1" -eq "$1" ] 2> /dev/null && printf ' (integer)'
        printf '\n'
        shift 1
        i=$((i+1))
    done
} >&2

# inside some function you would call it like this
dump_arguments "$@"

# but to only try it out, you can call it directly
dump_arguments '1' '' 5

Answer 1

printf '%b' "dump_arguments()\\n----------------\\n$# arguments are being inspected"

We could make that easier to read by making each line a separate argument, and ending the line properly (rather than requiring a separate command):

punct=.
${1+false} true || punct=:
printf '%s\n'                                       \
       'dump_arguments()'                           \
       '----------------'                           \
       "$# arguments are being inspected$punct"

It seems odd to use %s here:

    printf '%s' "[$i]: '$1'"

Why not use the format string more clearly? And this allows us to modify to use %q if we have a suitable printf:

    printf "[%d]: '%s'" "$i" "$1"

Perhaps even combine the type into a single print:

    type=
    [ -z "$1" ] && type=' (empty)'
    [ "$1" -eq "$1" ] 2>/dev/null && type=' (integer)'
    printf "[%d]: '%s'%s\n" "$i" "$1" "$type"

Is it intentional that strings such as ' 5' (with leading and/or trailing spaces) are counted as integers?

    shift 1

Normally written simply as

    shift

That said, I think it's more natural to iterate over arguments using a for loop instead.

} >&2

That's surprising, as the output isn't an error, but expected when calling the function. It should be up to the caller to choose where stream 1 goes.

---

Modified code

#!/bin/sh

dump_arguments()
# string function - prints arguments (position and content)
# indicates empty arguments and integer numbers
{
    punct=${1+:}
    printf '%s\n'                                               \
           'dump_arguments()'                                   \
           '----------------'                                   \
           "$# arguments are being inspected${punct:-.}"
    i=1
    for v
    do
        if [ -z "$v" ]
        then type=' (empty)'
        elif [ "$v" -eq "$v" ] 2>/dev/null
        then type=' (integer)'
        else type=
        fi
        printf "[%d]: '%s'%s\n" \
               "$i"   "$v" "$type"
        i=$((i+1))
    done
}