Shell Programming and Scripting

Hello,

Im new to shell scripting , and i have the following question .

The hcitool scan command returns the bluetooth address of the phone . When it is run the output is something like

Code:

Scanning....
             00:A1:5D:AB:B2:E9  Nokia 6600

Can i get the output in a varaiable in a shell script ?

I tried redirecting the output to a file, as follows

Code:

hcitool scan > addr

But the file only recorded "Scanning....". The remaining part was not saved.

Please help.

Thanks.

Maybe the second bit of output is sent to stderr instead of stdout? Try hcitool scan > addr 2>&1.

If that works, use this to get it into a variable:

Code:

addr=$(hcitool scan 3>&1 >/dev/null 2>&3 | awk '{print $1}')

The 3>&1 part copies file descriptor 1 (stdout) to a new file descriptor 3. >/dev/null discards stdout, and then 2>&3 redirects stderr to the new file descriptor. This means that the awk process which is next in the pipeline can read from stdin what would previously have gone to stderr.