Rainbow Cow Fortune Teller

Rainbow-Cow Fortune Teller

A fun script to be placed in .bashrc || .profile which will tell you a fortune from a cow in rainbow technicolors.

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Installation and Configuration

Install on Ubuntu/Debian or other Linux distros, MacOS, or Windows WSL distros

sudo apt install fortune cowsay lolcat -y

This script, once inserted in your .bashrc or .profile file in your home directory, will search for a custom BASH function that I've written, and which can be found farther down on this page. If it doesn't find the BASH function, it will search for a script variation ** (make sure to change this to a location that exists on your machine) ** , if the shell script isn't located, it will perform the scripted process itself. The order of checks and operations is:

1. BASH function
2. BASH/shell script
3. .bashrc script

NOTE: You can modify this however you like. I was just trying to make it failsafe on my own machine, so no matter what, it would run. The only thing I didn't do was have it install the applications itself, but that could easily be done, if desired.

BASH Shell Function

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Need to have this function file sourced with .bashrc or .profile using:

# add this to your bash .profile or .bashrc file and change filepath to match your location and filename
if [ -f "~/code/scripts/bash/my_bash_functions" ]; then
    . "~/code/scripts/bash/my_bash_fucntion"
fi

the function that needs to be saved in a file and referenced by your bash .profile or .bashrc

# fortune told by rainbow cow
function rainbow_cow_fortune(){
  # variables for app lookup
  GAMES=/usr/games
  set -- "fortune" "cowsay" "lolcat"
  
  if [ -d "$GAMES" ]; then
    # declare some variables
    CHECK="true"
    declare -a MISSING

    # loop through app list
    for g in $@; do
      if [ -f "$GAMES/$g" ] && [ "$CHECK" == "true" ]; then
        CHECK="true"
      else
        CHECK="false"
        MISSING+=("$GAMES/$g")
      fi
    done

    # execute if CHECK is good, otherwise report missing app
    if [ $CHECK == "true" ]; then
      fortune | cowsay | lolcat
    else
      echo "One or more apps aren't detected on your system!"
      echo "Apps searched for: $@"
      echo "Missing app: ${MISSING[0]}"
    fi
  fi
}

My .bashrc Script Entry

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add this to your .bashrc or .profile and change the directory paths accordingly.

if [ -n "$(LC_ALL=C type -t rainbow_cow_fortune)" ] && [ "$(LC_ALL=C type -t rainbow_cow_fortune)" == function ]; then
  echo 'function'
  rainbow_cow_fortune
elif [ -x ~/code/scripts/bash/rainbow-cow-fortune.sh ]; then
  echo 'script:'
  ~/code/scripts/bash/rainbow-cow-fortune.sh
else
  echo 'bashrc:'
  GAMES=/usr/games
  set -- "fortune" "cowsay" "lolcat"
  if [ -d "$GAMES" ]; then
    # declare some variables
    CHECK="true"
    declare -a MISSING=
  
    # loop through app list
    for g in $@; do
      if [ -f "$GAMES/$g" ] && [ "$CHECK" == "true" ]; then
	CHECK="true"
      else
        CHECK="false"
        MISSING+=("$GAMES/$g")
      fi
    done
  
    # execute if CHECK is good, otherwise report missing app
    if [ $CHECK == "true" ]; then
      fortune | cowsay | lolcat
    else
      echo "One or more apps aren't detected on your system!"
      echo "Apps searched for: $@"
      echo "Missing app: ${MISSING[0]}"
    fi
  fi
fi

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Other Works, Some Thoughts, and a Disclaimer

Other Fun and Useful Stuff

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Checkout my GitHub repo that has all of these and more BASH goodies.

Thoughts

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If you'd like to make these better in some way, please feel free to create an issue on my repo, or fork my repo; update/mod the code, and submit a Pull Request on GitHub.com/devopsmyth/bash-mash.

Disclaimer

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Do NOT forget to USE-AT-YOUR-OWN-RISK with any scripts you find here or anywhere else online. I don't claim to have written any of the scripts on my repo entirely from scratch, I'm sure I borrowed ideas and snippets from lots of places. If you see something that resembles some other work, there's a possibility that I learned from that same resource. I am by no means an expert in Linux, or BASH, I'm just a hobbyist and IT professional with many years of experience. This is my first foray into sharing my personal stuff online, so keep the criticisms useful, please.

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