With cut -c 8-13 myfile,

I am getting some numeric value.
In my shell script I am trying to assign something like this,
var=cut -c 8-13 myfile
But at the time of execution I am getting -c is not found.
If I dont assign, then script executes well.

Can we not simply use the value from one command output into the
variable in shell script?

Instead of
var=cut -c 8-13 myfile
try
var=`cut -c 8-13 myfile`

Meanwhile I started with awk. So on the similar lines I am trying to evaluate
awk o/p to var.

start=2
len=10
var=`awk <"$1""myfile" '{print substr($0,$start,$len)}'`
echo $var

After executing, I am getting awk error.

If at the place of $start & $len, I put 2 & 10 resp, it works.

Where am I making a mistake?

What exactly is this line
supposed to be achieving?

Without knowing exactly what your problem is, something like
may be more appropriate.

Cheers
ZB

Zazzybob

Yes,
that works. But let me explain what was my thought process behind prev command.

awk < filename - I understand as, file 'filename' is an input to awk. $1 param consists
dir loc where the file is residing.

In my fixed width file, I have these numeric values. Those I am retrieving with
substring.

I know that that kind of redirection will work, but it's unneccessary - you can just take the filename onto the end of the command.

Cheers
ZB

Also I would like to get rid of leading zeros, after I read a number from fixed width
file.
Say, 00000015 should be read as 15.

How would I achieve that?