Bug#751199: RFP: shellcheck -- static analysis and linting tool for sh/bash scripts

["Trent W. Buck" <trentbuck@gmail.com>]

Package: wnpp
Severity: wishlist

* Package name    : shellcheck
  Version         : 0.3.3
  Upstream Author : Vidar Holen <vidar@vidarholen.net>
* URL             : https://hackage.haskell.org/package/ShellCheck
* License         : Affero GPL3
  Programming Lang: Haskell
  Description     : static analysis and linting tool for sh/bash scripts

The goals of ShellCheck are:
.
 * To point out and clarify typical beginner's syntax issues,
   that causes a shell to give cryptic error messages.
 * To point out and clarify typical intermediate level semantic problems,
   that causes a shell to behave strangely and counter-intuitively.
 * To point out subtle caveats, corner cases and pitfalls,
   that may cause an advanced user's otherwise working script to fail under
   future circumstances.
.
ShellCheck can output gcc style error messages and checkstyle compatible xml,
which allows any editor to show inlined error messages.
.
It's also supported directly by Syntastic in Vim and Flycheck in Emacs.

 - why is this package useful/relevant?
   is it a dependency for another package?
   ==> no

   do you use it?
   ==> I want to *start* using it regularly.
       You can try shellcheck online: http://www.shellcheck.net/

       I was idly considering running it on all the scripts in Debian
       and filing gazillions of patch bugs, but I'll probably never do
       it. :-)

   if there are other packages providing similar functionality,
   how does it compare?

   ==> AFAIK the closest thing to this in Debian is checkbashisms,
       which addresses a different issue.
       Similar functionality exists for *other* languages in Debian,
       e.g. perlcritic for perl.

 - how do you plan to maintain it?
   ==> No, I don't have the time or resources.
       I'm hoping the Haskell team can maintain it with near-zero effort.