Shell Programming and Scripting

Hi,

I am new to unix and trying to learn shell scripting. I am using Redhat linux instead of unix and using Bash shell.

I typed some code which consist of "set" command. I got the code from a book.
The code is,

set 'who am i'
echo $name

Actually the output should be my logname. But it displays as "who".

Can anyone help me?

Regards
S.Saravanakumar

You use set to set some variable in your current shell. What will work is

Code:

set name=`who am i`
echo $name

The 2 ticks around the "who i am" are backticks, which have the comand inside them to be executed.
You wrote it with single quotations marks. These deny any execution or substitution inside them.
You can just leave the set out of it and just write "name=...." btw.

Concur; you want backticks (grave accents, ASCII 96) not regular apostrophes.

The sample code will not work as expected; either use what zaxxon posted, or perhaps something like this:

Code:

set -- `who am i`
echo $1  # the previous set command sets $1, $2, etc

Thanks to all, I used the single quotation mark instead of backticks. Replacing the bakticks instead of single quatation working fine.

the piece of code :

set `who am i`
echo $1

Thanks & Regards
S.S