What would it take to add a command to run a script at the completion any given random task?

Question

I was playing around with Pushover, and had the thought that it would be cool if I could use it as an argument on any random command, so that it would run a pushover script at the end of the task, regardless of what that task was.

I have no idea if it's possible, or how I would go about it, but I'd like to learn.

This question on the RasPi Stack Exchange site is what got me thinking about it. But I think there are many things it would be useful for, like letting you know when that compile job is finally finished, and maybe if it was successful.

I had the thought that it could look something like:

     $ apt-get -b source packagename -pushover "Compile job complete."

The thought being that the argument '-pushover [enter message text here]' after any command would execute the pushover script, and use their API to notify you via their app.

So I guess the question is, is it possible to do in this fashion? If so, where do I start? If not, are there better ways to accomplish the same thing, without being limited by what command you are running?

I'm not locked on the idea of using it as a command argument, but I do want a way to run it with any command, without writing a separate script for each one.

I am new to Linux, so if it is a non-starter idea, I'll take that answer, too, provided there are logical explanations of why it won't work to go with it.

Answer 1

You do it the other way around:

$ pushover-notify "This is my message" command arg1 arg2

Your script pushover-notify could be something like this:

#!/bin/sh
TOKEN=your_token
USER=your_user
MSG="$1"
COMMAND="$2"
shift 2
if "$COMMAND" "$@" ; then
   # here run your send-message script, with message "$MSG". for example:
   curl -s \
        -F "token=$TOKEN" \
        -F "user=$USER" \
        -F "message=$MSG" \
        https://api.pushover.net/1/messages
else
   # here send some message indicating failure, or don't do anything. for example:
   curl -s \
        -F "token=$TOKEN" \
        -F "user=$USER" \
        -F "message=command failed: $COMMAND $@" \
        https://api.pushover.net/1/messages
fi

Answer 2

I have my programs send me emails, or beep the console when they are finished. I use the && character which tells console to wait for the previous command to finish and I end the whole thing with another & to get control of the console back.

So your example would look like this:

apt-get -b source packagename && sleep 10 && pushover "Compile job complete." &

I add sleep 10 for good measure. Note I don't know the pushover syntax.

Also, without using pushover, you might like using mailx to send you emails or txt messages, or echo -a "\a" to beep the console instead.