what is $1

11-18-2008

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what is $1

I see $1 in many scripts, can someone explain in the most simple terms useful, what does it mean/do please? It is never defined before, I read something like it's a conditional variable, help me out.. I want to be able to use it since it obviously is useful

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$1 is the first commandline argument. If you run ./asdf.sh a b c d e, then $1 will be a, $2 will be b, etc. In shells with functions, $1 may serve as the first function parameter, and so forth.

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what is $1