So when I try to do
echo cat file1.txt
The output is cat file.txt
However, when I do:
echo 'cat file1.txt'
The output is the actual contents of the file1.txt
Although I recognize the echo command is not required at all to achieve the goal of displaying the file contents, I was curious as to why the outputs differed in these given situations
As you are confused about behaviour
Every unix statment inside `` is considered as a saparate command
you can directly use `` on command to assign the output of command into that variable
see below:
[cloudera#quickstart sub1]$ a=`echo "Hello"`
[cloudera#quickstart sub1]$ echo $a
Hello
[cloudera#quickstart sub1]$
in above example you can see i am assigning the output of echo "Hello" to a variable named a
Are you sure you typed
echo 'cat file.txt'
and not
echo `cat file.txt`
?
In the first case, I have no clue what’s going on. In the second, however, there is no mystery. In most shells, typing
foo `bar`
means, somewhat (over)simplified, "run bar, and use its output as the command parameters for running foo".
If you are running Bash, this is described in the section on command substitution in the manual.
Related
I have a test.zsh script that contains echo $ZSH_VERSION and it outputs nothing. From the command line, echo $ZSH_VERSION prints 5.8. Is there a reason why this variable is null inside a zsh script? I am runing macOS 11.1.
As pointed out in the comments, file name extensions like .zsh mean nothing to Unix shells. What matters when sourcing a script is the shebang on the first line of the script. If you want your script to be interpreted by zsh instead, then you need to put this as the first line of your script:
#!/bin/zsh
Goal
In ZSH script, for a given args, I want to obtain the first string and the rest.
For instance, when the script is named test
sh test hello
supposed to extract h and ello.
ZSH manual
http://zsh.sourceforge.net/Doc/zsh_a4.pdf
says:
Subscripting may also be performed on non-array values, in which case the subscripts specify a
substring to be extracted. For example, if FOO is set to ‘foobar’, then ‘echo $FOO[2,5]’ prints
‘ooba’.
Q1
So, I wrote a shell script in a file named test
echo $1
echo $1[1,1]
terminal:
$ sh test hello
hello
hello[1,1]
the result fails. What's wrong with the code?
Q2
Also I don't know how to extract subString from n to the last. Perhaps do I have to use Array split by regex?
EDIT: Q3
This may be another question, so if it's proper to start new Thread, I will do so.
Thanks to #skishore Here is the further code
#! /bin/zsh
echo $1
ARG_FIRST=`echo $1 | cut -c1`
ARG_REST=`echo $1 | cut -c2-`
echo ARG_FIRST=$ARG_FIRST
echo ARG_REST=$ARG_REST
if $ARG_FIRST = ""; then
echo nullArgs
else
if $ARG_FIRST = "#"; then
echo #Args
else
echo regularArgs
fi
fi
I'm not sure how to compare string valuables to string, but for a given args hello
result:
command not found: h
What's wrong with the code?
EDIT2:
What I've found right
#! /bin/zsh
echo $1
ARG_FIRST=`echo $1 | cut -c1`
ARG_REST=`echo $1 | cut -c2-`
echo ARG_FIRST=$ARG_FIRST
echo ARG_REST=$ARG_REST
if [ $ARG_FIRST ]; then
if [ $ARG_FIRST = "#" ]; then
echo #Args
else
echo regularArgs
fi
else
echo nullArgs
fi
EDIT3:
As the result of whole, this is what I've done with this question.
https://github.com/kenokabe/GitSnapShot
GitSnapShot is a ZSH thin wrapper for Git commands for easier and simpler usage
A1
As others have said, you need to wrap it in curly braces. Also, use a command interpreter (#!...), mark the file as executable, and call it directly.
#!/bin/zsh
echo $1
echo ${1[1,1]}
A2
The easiest way to extract a substring from a parameter (zsh calls variables parameters) is to use parameter expansion. Using the square brackets tells zsh to treat the scalar (i.e. string) parameter as an array. For a single character, this makes sense. For the rest of the string, you can use the simpler ${parameter:start:length} notation instead. If you omit the :length part (as we will here), then it will give you the rest of the scalar.
File test:
#!/bin/zsh
echo ${1[1]}
echo ${1:1}
Terminal:
$ ./test Hello
H
ello
A3
As others have said, you need (preferably double) square brackets to test. Also, to test if a string is NULL use -z, and to test if it is not NULL use -n. You can just put a string in double brackets ([[ ... ]]), but it is preferable to make your intentions clear with -n.
if [[ -z "${ARG_FIRST}" ]]; then
...
fi
Also remove the space between #! and /bin/zsh.
And if you are checking for equality, use ==; if you are assigning a value, use =.
RE:EDIT2:
Declare all parameters to set the scope. If you do not, you may clobber or use a parameter inherited from the shell, which may cause unexpected behavior. Google's shell style guide is a good resource for stuff like this.
Use builtins over external commands.
Avoid backticks. Use $(...) instead.
Use single quotes when quoting a literal string. This prevents pattern matching.
Make use of elif or case to avoid nested ifs. case will be easier to read in your example here, but elif will probably be better for your actual code.
Using case:
#!/bin/zsh
typeset ARG_FIRST="${1[1]}"
typeset ARG_REST="${1:1}"
echo $1
echo 'ARG_FIRST='"${ARG_FIRST}"
echo 'ARG_REST='"${ARG_REST}"
case "${ARG_FIRST}" in
('') echo 'nullArgs' ;;
('#') echo '#Args' ;;
(*)
# Recommended formatting example with more than 1 sloc
echo 'regularArgs'
;;
esac
using elif:
#!/bin/zsh
typeset ARG_FIRST="${1[1]}"
typeset ARG_REST="${1:1}"
echo $1
echo 'ARG_FIRST='"${ARG_FIRST}"
echo 'ARG_REST='"${ARG_REST}"
if [[ -z "${ARG_FIRST}" ]]; then
echo nullArgs
elif [[ '#' == "${ARG_FIRST}" ]]; then
echo #Args
else
echo regularArgs
fi
RE:EDIT3
Use "$#" unless you really know what you are doing. Explanation.
You can use the cut command:
echo $1 | cut -c1
echo $1 | cut -c2-
Use $() to assign these values to variables:
ARG_FIRST=$(echo $1 | cut -c1)
ARG_REST=$(echo $1 | cut -c2-)
echo ARG_FIRST=$ARG_FIRST
echo ARG_REST=$ARG_REST
You can also replace $() with backticks, but the former is recommended and the latter is somewhat deprecated due to nesting issues.
So, I wrote a shell script in a file named test
$ sh test hello
This isn't a zsh script: you're calling it with sh, which is (almost certainly) bash. If you've got the shebang (#!/bin/zsh), you can make it executable (chmod +x <script>) and run it: ./script. Alternatively, you can run it with zsh <script>.
the result fails. What's wrong with the code?
You can wrap in braces:
echo ${1} # This'll work with or without the braces.
echo ${1[3,5]} # This works in the braces.
echo $1[3,5] # This doesn't work.
Running this: ./test-script hello gives:
./test-script.zsh hello
hello
llo
./test-script.zsh:5: no matches found: hello[3,5]
Also I don't know how to extract subString from n to the last. Perhaps do I have to use Array split by regex?
Use the [n,last] notation, but wrap in braces. We can determine how long our variable is with, then use the length:
# Store the length of $1 in LENGTH.
LENGTH=${#1}
echo ${1[2,${LENGTH}]} # Display from `2` to `LENGTH`.
This'll produce ello (prints from the 2nd to the last character of hello).
Script to play with:
#!/usr/local/bin/zsh
echo ${1} # Print the input
echo ${1[3,5]} # Print from 3rd->5th characters of input
LENGTH=${#1}
echo ${1[2,${LENGTH}]} # Print from 2nd -> last characters of input.
You can use the cut command:
But that would be using extra baggage - zsh is quite capable of doing all this on it's own without spawning multiple sub-shells for simplistic operations.
I need to get exactly one character from console and not print it.
I've tried to use read -en 1 as I did using bash. But this doesn't work at all.
And vared doesn't seem to have such option.
How to read 1 symbol in zsh? (I'm using zsh v.4.3.11 and v.5.0.2)
read -sk
From the documentation:
-s
Don’t echo back characters if reading from the terminal. Currently does not work with the -q option.
-k [ num ]
Read only one (or num) characters. All are assigned to the first name, without word splitting. This flag is ignored when -q is present. Input is read from the terminal unless one of -u or -p is present. This option may also be used within zle widgets.
Note that despite the mnemonic ‘key’ this option does read full characters, which may consist of multiple bytes if the option MULTIBYTE is set.
If you want your script to be a bit more portable you can do something like this:
y=$(bash -c "read -n 1 c; echo \$c")
read reads from the terminal by default:
% date | read -sk1 "?Enter one char: "; echo $REPLY
Enter one char: X
Note above:
The output of date is discarded
The X is printed by the echo, not when the user enters it.
To read from a pipeline, use file descriptor 0:
% echo foobar | read -rk1 -u0; echo $REPLY
f
% echo $ZSH_VERSION
5.5.1
Try something like
read line
c=`echo $line | cut -c1`
echo $c
Let's say I do this in a unix shell
$ some-script.sh | grep mytext
$ echo $?
this will give me the exit code of grep
but how can I get the exit code of some-script.sh
EDIT
Assume that the pipe operation is immutable. ie, I can not break it apart and run the two commands seperately
There are multiple solutions, it depends on what you want to do exactly.
The easiest and understandable way would be to send the output to a file, then grep for it after saving the exit code:
tmpfile=$(mktemp)
./some-script.sh > $tmpfile
retval=$?
grep mytext $tmpfile
rm tmpfile
A trick from the comp.unix.shell FAQ (#13) explains how using the pipeline in the Bourne shell should help accomplish what you want:
You need to use a trick to pass the exit codes to the main
shell. You can do it using a pipe(2). Instead of running
"cmd1", you run "cmd1; echo $?" and make sure $? makes it way
to the shell.
exec 3>&1
eval `
# now, inside the `...`, fd4 goes to the pipe
# whose other end is read and passed to eval;
# fd1 is the normal standard output preserved
# the line before with exec 3>&1
exec 4>&1 >&3 3>&-
{
cmd1 4>&-; echo "ec1=$?;" >&4
} | {
cmd2 4>&-; echo "ec2=$?;" >&4
} | cmd3
echo "ec3=$?;" >&4
If you're using bash:
PIPESTATUS
An array variable (see Arrays) containing a list of exit status values from the processes in the most-recently-executed foreground pipeline (which may contain only a single command).
There is a utility named mispipe which is part of the moreutils package.
It does exactly that: mispipe some-script.sh 'grep mytext'
First approach, temporarly save exit status in some file. This cause you must create subshell using braces:
(your_script.sh.pl.others; echo $? >/tmp/myerr)|\ #subshell with exitcode saving
grep sh #next piped commands
exitcode=$(cat /tmp/myerr) #restore saved exitcode
echo $exitcode #and print them
another approach presented by Randy above, simplier code implementation:
some-script.sh | grep mytext
echo ${PIPESTATUS[0]} #print exitcode for first commands. tables are indexted from 0
its all. both works under bash (i know, bashizm). good luck :)
both approaches does not save temporarly pipe to physical file, only exit code.
The unix tee command splits the standard input to stdout AND a file.
What I need is something that works the other way around, merging several inputs to one output - I need to concatenate the stdout of two (or more) commands.
Not sure what the semantics of this app should be - let's suppose each argument is a complete command.
Example:
> eet "echo 1" "echo 2" > file.txt
should generate a file that has contents
1
2
I tried
> echo 1 && echo 2 > zz.txt
It doesn't work.
Side note: I know I could just append the outputs of each command to the file, but I want to do this in one go (actually, I want to pipe the merged outputs to another program).
Also, I could roll my own, but I'm lazy whenever I can afford it :-)
Oh yeah, and it would be nice if it worked in Windows (although I guess any bash/linux-flavored solution works, via UnxUtils/msys/etc)
Try
( echo 1; echo 2 ) > file.txt
That spawn a subshell and executes the commands there
{ echo 1; echo 2; } > file.txt
is possible, too. That does not spawn a subshell (the semicolon after the last command is important)
I guess what you want is to run both commands in parallel, and pipe both outputs merged to another command.
I would do:
( echo 1 & echo 2 ) | cat
Where "echo 1" and "echo 2" are the commands generating the outputs and "cat" is the command that will receive the merged output.
echo 1 > zz.txt && echo 2 >> zz.txt
That should work. All you're really doing is running two commands after each other, where the first redirects to a file, and then, if that was successful, you run another command that appends its output to the end of the file you wrote in the first place.