UNIX for Dummies Questions & Answers

Hi Friends,

I am new to shell scripting and a trying to work this out.

I have a variable called $number.
The value in this variable is 10

I want to display $number - 2 in a mail. The result would be 8

eg.

mail -s 'subject' user <<eof
the result of your calculation is $number - 2
eof

I should be mailed :
the result of your calculation is 8

can someone please give me the syntax.

likewise, I would like to know how to do it with echo

echo $number -2

8

Thanks in advance

Suresh

Code:

number=`expr $number - 2`
mail -s 'subject' user <<eof 
the result of your calculation is $number 
eof

You calculate $number before the mail statement.

Code:

echo `expr $number - 2`

Do a man expr to learn more about expr.

HTH's

Thanks for your help,
that's done the job!