The purpose of this topic is to present one possible use-case for executing a shell script inside a docker container.
The homekit_controller integration reports a sensor’s light level as a float number.
For example: 27.6 lux
As a result, it can lead to reporting numerous state-changes when the light level varies ever so slightly (27.6, 27.9, 27.1, etc). For most practical purposes, there’s no need for fractional lux values. I would prefer if it reports the value as an integer.
Here’s the relevant line in the source code that reports light level:
return self.service.value(CharacteristicsTypes.LIGHT_LEVEL_CURRENT)
To make it return an integer all I need to do is add int() like this:
return int(self.service.value(CharacteristicsTypes.LIGHT_LEVEL_CURRENT))
Of course, every time I upgrade Home Assistant I will need to ‘patch’ the source code again. To simplify this step, I can use a shell script. However, I am using Home Assistant Supervised so Home Assistant runs inside a docker container. The challenge becomes to call a shell script and have it run inside the homeassistant docker container.
I’m using two shell scripts, one that performs the actual source-code editing (using sed) and the other calls the first script and executes it inside the docker container.
Here’s the shell script that modifies the sensor.py file. This shell script is located in the /usr/share/hassio directory (if you use Home Assistant OS then the directory would be /config).
homekit_light_level.sh
sed -i 's/return self.service.value(CharacteristicsTypes.LIGHT_LEVEL_CURRENT)/return int(self.service.value(CharacteristicsTypes.LIGHT_LEVEL_CURRENT))/' /usr/src/homeassistant/homeassistant/components/homekit_controller/sensor.py
Here’s the shell script that executes the previous one. It is also located in /usr/share/hassio.
fix_homekit.sh
docker exec -i homeassistant bash < /usr/share/hassio/homeassistant/homekit_light_level.sh
Both shell scripts have been assigned executable permissions:
chmod u+x ./fix_homekit.sh
chmod u+x ./homekit_light_level.sh
To use it, I simply call ./fix_homekit.sh from the command line in the usr/share/hassio directory then restart Home Assistant.
The result is that all light levels reported by the homekit_controller integration are integer values.
