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Pipe inside variable isn't working in bash

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Join Date: Jul 2003

Posts: 13

Reputation: Reginald0 is an unknown quantity at this point

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Reginald0

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Pipe inside variable isn't working in bash

Jan 30th, 2004

Hi, folks!

See the examples:

bash$ X="ls"; $X
file1 file2 file3
*** Works correctly!

bash$ X="ls | wc"; $X
ls: |: No such file or directory
ls: wc: No such file or directory
*** Doesn't work!

How to make the last command work correctly as first?

Thanks in advance!

Reginald0

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Join Date: Jan 2004

Posts: 1

Reputation: juppe10a is an unknown quantity at this point

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juppe10a

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Re: Pipe inside variable isn't working in bash

Jan 30th, 2004

Hi,

if you want to store command result in variable use back quote:
# X=`ls | wc`
# echo $X.

or use command alias:
# alias X="ls | wc"
# X

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Join Date: Jul 2003

Posts: 13

Reputation: Reginald0 is an unknown quantity at this point

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Reginald0

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Re: Pipe inside variable isn't working in bash

Jan 30th, 2004

juppe10a,

It's not exactly what I was looking for, cause the command result isn't important to store to a variable, but the command execution itself.
I found a perfect way to do that:

# X="ls | wc"; eval $X

Simple but functional.

Thanks anyway!

Reginald0