Bash Script for MythTV which requires Python Dependencies

Question

I wrote a bash script which renames MythTV files based upon data it receives. I wrote it in bash because bash has the strong points of textual data manipulation and ease of use.
You can see the script itself here: http://code.google.com/p/mythicallibrarian/source/browse/trunk/mythicalLibrarian

I have several users which are first time Linux users. I've created an installation script here which checks dependencies and sets things up in a graphical manner. You can see the setup script here: http://code.google.com/p/mythicallibrarian/source/browse/trunk/mythicalSetup.sh

Recently, there were some changes to MythTV which require me to migrate the mysql database access in mythicalLibrarian to a Python bindings script. here: http://code.google.com/p/mythicallibrarian/source/browse/trunk/pythonBindings/MythDataGrabber

Previously, I've tested dependencies using a system like this:

test "`uname`" != "Darwin" && LinuxDep=1 || LinuxDep=0

if which agrep >/dev/null; then
        echo "Verified agrep exists"
else
        test "$LinuxDep" = "1" && echo "Please install 'agrep' on your system" || echo "Please obtain MacPorts and install package agrep"
        d="agrep "
fi
 .........................
if which agrep>/dev/null && which curl>/dev/null && which dialog>/dev/null; then
        echo "All checks complete!!!"
else
        echo "the proper dependencies must be installed..." 
        echo "The missing dependencies are $a$b$c$d$e"
        test "$LinuxDep" = "1" && echo "Debian based users run: apt-get install $a$b$c$d$e" || echo "Please obtain MacPorts and run: port install $a$b$c"
        if [ "$LinuxDep" = "0" ]; then
                read -n1 -p " Would you like some help on installing MacPorts? Select: (y)/n" MacPortsHelp

The python dependencies make it a bit more difficult. I don't know how to test if I have the linux pacakge "libmyth-python" and "python-lxml" on the system.

How, from BASH, can I test that my Python script MythDataGrabber has its

 from MythTV import MythDB

requirement satisfied?

Answer 1

Write a Python script:

try:
    from MythTV import MythDB
    print "Yes"
except ImportError:
    print "No"

then run the Python script from your Bash script, and check its output.

Answer 2

You can check the status code of:

python -c "import MythDB.MythTV"

If it returns non-zero, there was an error, likely an ImportError.