How do I check for an error in bash with -e

Question

How can I selectively check lines for errors (and not fail) when -e is set.

Most of my commands need -e , but one does not.

set -e
foo
bar

biz
if [ ! $? -e 0 ]
   echo oh noes
fi

The $? obviously doesn't work.

What is the best way to do this?

Answer 1

From the (4.1) bash man page for the -e option:

The shell does not exit if the command that fails is part of the command list immediately following a while or until keyword, part of the test following the if or elif reserved words, part of any command executed in a && or ││ list except the command following the final && or ││

biz || echo "oh noes"

Only if biz fails does the RHS of the || execute, and echo is guaranteed to exit with status 0 so it cannot cause your script to fail.

You can also run the command with an if statement, as suggested by Etan:

if ! biz; then
    echo "oh noes"
fi

You can also simply turn -e off temporarily:

set +e
biz
if [ $? -ne 0 ]; then
   echo oh noes
fi
set -e

Answer 2

Inline the command running into the if check.

if ! biz; then
    echo oh noes
fi