Checking Bash exit status of several commands efficiently

Question

Is there something similar to pipefail for multiple commands, like a 'try' statement but within bash. I would like to do something like this:

echo "trying stuff"
try {
    command1
    command2
    command3
}

And at any point, if any command fails, drop out and echo out the error of that command. I don't want to have to do something like:

command1
if [ $? -ne 0 ]; then
    echo "command1 borked it"
fi

command2
if [ $? -ne 0 ]; then
    echo "command2 borked it"
fi

And so on... or anything like:

pipefail -o
command1 "arg1" "arg2" | command2 "arg1" "arg2" | command3

Because the arguments of each command I believe (correct me if I'm wrong) will interfere with each other. These two methods seem horribly long-winded and nasty to me so I'm here appealing for a more efficient method.

Answer 1

You can write a function that launches and tests the command for you. Assume command1 and command2 are environment variables that have been set to a command.

function mytest {
    "$@"
    local status=$?
    if (( status != 0 )); then
        echo "error with $1" >&2
    fi
    return $status
}

mytest "$command1"
mytest "$command2"