Command execution

General

• capture the result of a command's execution for use in the script
• execute a command and put the output of the command into a variable
• The current syntax for this
  • $(command)
• The older syntax for this
  • `command`
• the result of the $(command) is just the output from the command
  • This is the string output, not the return status

Examples

• echo The current directory is $PWD
  • Since PWD is a shell ENV, you don't need the special syntax
• echo The current users are $(who)

Assign to a variable

• blah=$(who)
• echo $blah