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I need to assign a variable $x value that returns from the command 'file' on $1. my code is:

echo $1 | xargs file 'x=$'

and the last part x=$ does not work. I need that if the argument $1 is 'archive.zip' then the variable x will get the value of the command 'file' on it. How can I do that?

Yennefer
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riki
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1 Answers1

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Assign value to a variable in shell script is like below

  a=$(echo $1 | xargs file)

The above means that execute what is inside $(...) and the output will be assigned to a variable with name a Access contents of variable a

 echo $a

You can execute also directly the file command with argument the file name and then store the output to a variable.

$1 is a special argument and its the first argument that used to call a script.

Example1: 

root@server[/root] > echo wiki.20191206.tar.gz | xargs file
wiki.20191206.tar.gz: gzip compressed data, from Unix, last modified: Fri Dec  6 00:00:01 2019
root@server[/root] > a=$(echo wiki.20191206.tar.gz | xargs file)
root@server[/root] > echo $a
wiki.20191206.tar.gz: gzip compressed data, from Unix, last modified: Fri Dec 6 00:00:01 2019

Example2: 

root@server[/root] > file wiki.20191206.tar.gz
wiki.20191206.tar.gz: gzip compressed data, from Unix, last modified: Fri Dec  6 00:00:01 2019
root@server[/root] > a=$(file wiki.20191206.tar.gz)
root@server[/root] > echo $a
wiki.20191206.tar.gz: gzip compressed data, from Unix, last modified: Fri Dec 6 00:00:01 201
igiannak
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    This question is clearly a duplicate (so is your answer). Next time you encounter such a question, instead of posting an answer, just flag and move on please – oguz ismail Dec 06 '19 at 10:28