Sponsored Content
Top Forums UNIX for Beginners Questions & Answers What is the meaning the $ special character? Post 303006459 by bodisha on Thursday 2nd of November 2017 11:16:10 AM
Old 11-02-2017
What is the meaning the $ special character?

Hello... and thank you in advanced for any help anyone can offer me

I'm hoping someone can explain what the leading $ is/means (i.e. $PS1, $HOME, etc).... I was having a discussion with someone and was trying to explain it... Which I felt like I came up kind of short with how well I did it.

I understand it's a special character and how to use it if I want to see the value of a variable or if I want to see the status of a command... I'm just unsure what kind of special character its categorized as or the definition of it's exact function.

I got home and googled it... I found plenty of explanations on how to use it but didn't find an adequate explanation of what it is and it's definition. It seems like every special character is well documented except the $... Could someone explain to me how it's categorized and it's extract definition?

Once again... thanks for reading this and any help anyone can offer
 

10 More Discussions You Might Find Interesting

1. Programming

special character ?

hey there im a bit stuck on executing commands that include the special character '?'. can someone recommend a way on how i would be able to execute it?? i thought the glob function could be useful (still mite be) but upon entering the command 'ls pars?' it listed all the files in the... (1 Reply)
Discussion started by: mile1982
1 Replies

2. UNIX for Dummies Questions & Answers

Special meaning characters in dir names

Hello, I've had a daemon go a little bit mental and create directories using somments from a config file. The end result is I've ended up with directories with names such as #, 5625), (5725 etc etc etc... However, when I try and delete them I get syntax errors, ( not expected, rmdir #... (2 Replies)
Discussion started by: JWilliams
2 Replies

3. Shell Programming and Scripting

special character

Hi, I am trying to unload file from a database. Which contains few lines with the character below. Rest of the data was unloaded appropriately. a) What does this below character means? b) How can i remove it, I already have sed '/^$/d' c) Will this effect the file by any means... (4 Replies)
Discussion started by: tostay2003
4 Replies

4. Shell Programming and Scripting

Special character in Diff

Hi I am comparing 2 files (using diff command) with numerical data in them. In the output file I want only the differences which are in file2 but not in file1. Although I am getting the diffences i am also getting special characters in the output file which i do not want. Can somebody help me For... (3 Replies)
Discussion started by: ashu_r2001
3 Replies

5. Shell Programming and Scripting

Special character \

Hi, In the shell script, i need to remove the special charater "\" with "\\". For example, i need to replace "D:\FXT\ABC.TXT" with "D:\\FXT\\ABC.TXT". However, when trying to do something like , i get the below error :- -->echo "D:\FXT\ABC.TXT" | sed -e 's#\#\\#g' sed: 0602-404 Function... (7 Replies)
Discussion started by: amit_arora
7 Replies

6. Shell Programming and Scripting

Deleteing one character after an special character

I have below line in a unix file, I want to delete one character after "Â". 20091020.Non-Agency CMO Daily Trade Recap Â~V Hybrids The result should be : 20091020.Non-Agency CMO Daily Trade Recap  Hybrids i dont want to use "~V" anywhere in the sed command or any other command, just remove... (1 Reply)
Discussion started by: mohsin.quazi
1 Replies

7. Solaris

What is the meaning of the character x in /etc/shadow file?

what is the meaning of the character x in /etc/shadow file which is lying in the encrypted password column.. i need this urgently (4 Replies)
Discussion started by: DJ2176
4 Replies

8. Shell Programming and Scripting

Vi special character

When editing a file, vi displays a special character as ^L. Can you tell me the escaped character to be used in awk? And can that escaped character be used in a regexp in both sed and awk? (7 Replies)
Discussion started by: dmesserly
7 Replies

9. Shell Programming and Scripting

Grep -F for special character

a='CASH$$A' /usr/xpg4/bin/grep -F "$a" *.txt It is not able to grep CASH$$A string as it contains special character $$. I also tried with /usr/xpg4/bin/grep -F '$a' *.txt but still not working. I have to assign CASH$$A to a variable and serach that variable..i dont want to search the... (8 Replies)
Discussion started by: millan
8 Replies

10. UNIX for Beginners Questions & Answers

Special character $$

Hi, on ksh What does the following do? grep -v "toolbox" $home_oracle/.profile >$home_oracle/.profile.$$ Thanks. Please use CODE tags as required by forum rules! (3 Replies)
Discussion started by: big123456
3 Replies
environ(4)							   File Formats 							environ(4)

NAME
environ, pref, variables - user-preference variables files for AT&T FACE SYNOPSIS
$HOME/pref/.environ $HOME/pref/.variables $HOME/FILECABINET/.pref $HOME/WASTEBASKET/.pref DESCRIPTION
The .environ, .pref, and .variables files contain variables that indicate user preferences for a variety of operations. The .environ and .variables files are located under the user's $HOME/pref directory. The .pref files are found under $HOME/FILECABINET, $HOME/WASTEBASKET, and any directory where preferences were set via the organize command. Names and descriptions for each variable are presented below. Vari- ables are listed one per line and are of the form variable=value. .environ Variables Variables found in .environ include: LOGINWIN[1-4] Windows that are opened when FACE is initialized. SORTMODE Sort mode for file folder listings. Values include the following hexadecimal digits: 1 Sorted alphabetically by name. 2 Files most recently modified first. 800 Sorted alphabetically by object type. The values above may be listed in reverse order by ORing the following value: 1000 List objects in reverse order. For example, a value of 1002 will produce a folder listing with files LEAST recently modified displayed first. A value of 1001 would produce a "reverse" alphabetical by name listing of the folder. DISPLAYMODE Display mode for file folders. Values include the following hexadecimal digits: 0 File names only. 4 File names and brief description. 8 File names, description, plus additional information. WASTEPROMPT Prompt before emptying wastebasket (yes/no?). WASTEDAYS Number of days before emptying wastebasket. PRINCMD[1-3] Print command defined to print files. UMASK Holds default permissions with which files will be created. .pref Variables Variables found in .pref are the following: SORTMODE Contains the same values as the SORTMODE variable described in .environ above. DISPMODE Contains the same values as the DISPLAYMODE variable described in .environ above. .variable Variables Variables found in .variables include: EDITOR Default editor. PS1 Shell prompt. SunOS 5.10 3 Jul 1990 environ(4)
All times are GMT -4. The time now is 11:22 AM.
Unix & Linux Forums Content Copyright 1993-2022. All Rights Reserved.
Privacy Policy