Running a bash function in gnome-terminal -x

Question

I have a bash function and I want to execute that function in a new window using gnome terminal. How do I do it? I want to do something like this in my blah.sh script:

    my_func() {
        // Do cool stuff
    }

    gnome-terminal -x my_func

What I am doing right now is putting my_func() into a script and calling gnome-terminal -x ./my_func

Answer 1

You can get it to work with export -f, as @kojiro's points out in a comment above.

# Define function.
my_func() {
    // Do cool stuff
}

# Export it, so that all child `bash` processes see it.
export -f my_func

# Invoke gnome-terminal with `bash -c` and the function name, *plus*
# another bash instance to keep the window open.
# NOTE: This is required, because `-c` invariably exits after 
#       running the specified command.
#       CAVEAT: The bash instance that stays open will be a *child* process of the
#       one that executed the function - and will thus not have access to any 
#       non-exported definitions from it.
gnome-terminal -x bash -c 'my_func; bash'

I borrowed the technique from https://stackoverflow.com/a/18756584/45375

---

With some trickery, you can make do without export -f, assuming that the bash instance that stays open after running the function doesn't itself need to inherit my_func.

declare -f returns the definition (source code) of my_func and so simply redefines it in the new bash instance:

gnome-terminal -x bash -c "$(declare -f my_func); my_func; bash"

Then again, you could even squeeze the export -f command in there, if you wanted:

gnome-terminal -x bash -c "$(declare -f my_func); 
  export -f my_func; my_func; bash"