Combine a shell script and a zip file into a single executable for deployment Combine a shell script and a zip file into a single executable for deployment shell shell

Combine a shell script and a zip file into a single executable for deployment


If it's ok to assume that the user who will run the script has the unzip utility, then you can create a script like this:

#!/usr/bin/env bash# commands that you need to do ...# ...unzip <(tail -n +$((LINENO + 2)) "$0")exit

Make sure the script has a newline \n character at the end of the line of exit. And, it's important that the last line of the script is the exit command, and that the unzip command with tail is right in front of it.

Then, you can append to this file the zipped content, for example with:

cat file.zip >> installer.sh

Users will be able to run installer.sh, which will unzip the zipped content at the end of the file.


Write a readme file, and ask your users to chmod the script, then to execute it.

For security reason I hope there is no way to auto-execute such things...

Edit: received a vote down because the OP did not like it, thanks a lot :)