💸 Caching

Caching is a core concept in import. Scripts are downloaded exactly once, and then cached on your filesystem forever (unless the IMPORT_RELOAD=1 environment variable is set).

#!/usr/bin/env import

# Import script files to the `/tmp` directory
IMPORT_CACHE="/tmp"

# Log information related to `import` to stderr
IMPORT_DEBUG=1

# Force a fresh download of script files (like Shift + Reload in the browser)
IMPORT_RELOAD=1

import assert

If you run this example, then you can see the file structure and order of operations because of the debug logging:

import: importing 'assert'
import: normalized URL 'https://import.sh/assert'
import: HTTP GET https://import.sh/assert
import: resolved location 'https://import.sh/assert' -> 'https://raw.githubusercontent.com/importpw/assert/master/assert.sh'
import: calculated hash 'https://import.sh/assert' -> '0a1c5188c768b3b150f1a8a104bb71a3fa160aad'
import: creating symlink ‘/tmp/links/https/import.sh/assert’ -> ‘../../../data/0a1c5188c768b3b150f1a8a104bb71a3fa160aad’
import: successfully downloaded 'https://import.sh/assert' -> '/tmp/data/0a1c5188c768b3b150f1a8a104bb71a3fa160aad'
import: sourcing '/tmp/links/https/import.sh/assert'

Now let's take a look at what the actual directory structure looks like:

$ tree /tmp
/tmp
├── data
│   └── bf671d3752778f91ad0884ff81b3e963af9e4a4f
├── links
│   └── https
│       └── import.sh
│           └── assert -> ../../../data/bf671d3752778f91ad0884ff81b3e963af9e4a4f
└── locations
    └── https
        └── import.sh
            └── assert

import generates three subdirectories under the IMPORT_CACHE directory:

• data - The raw shell scripts, named after the sha1sum of the file contents
• links - Symbolic links that are named according to the import URL
• locations - Files named according to the import URL that point to the real URL

⚙️ Cache Location

If the IMPORT_CACHE environment variable is not set, the cache location defaults to the directory import.sh in the OS-specific user cache directory. For this user cache directory import considers (in order):

• $XDG_CACHE_HOME (usually set on Linux)
• $LOCALAPPDATA (usually set on Windows)
• $HOME/Library/Caches on macOS and $HOME/.cache everywhere else