Wednesday, May 30, 2007

Getting shell script variable values

Here is the problem

bash-2.05# cat test1.sh
ATM_PIN="123"
echo "Environment variables" > out.log
env >> out.log
echo $ATM_PIN

bash-2.05# sh test1.sh
123

bash-2.05# cat out.log |grep -i atm
bash-2.05#

While debugging a shell script, if the values of the variables are required in an intermittent state of the shell script execution use the -a option.

bash-2.05# sh -a test1.sh
123
bash-2.05# cat out.log |grep -i atm
ATM_PIN=123
bash-2.05#

3 comments:

Shantanu said...

Actually I am looking out for a complete shell script debugger , like gdb is for C.

Found http://bashdb.sourceforge.net/bashdb.htm

I have not evaluated the product yet... please let me know if one has used it .

Arvind said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Anonymous said...

hey, abt the post... i was wondering something is not right... then i read thru man-pages of sh.. -a is actually

"-a Automatically export subsequently defined parameters."

so there you go.
instead, just cultivate the habit of exporting all variables in case you need the variable across shells. or source it for future invocations...