UNIX® Shells by Example, Third Edition

12.2. Reading User Input

12.2.1. Variables (Review)

In the last chapter we talked about declaring and unsetting variables. Variables are set local to the current shell or as environment variables. Unless your shell script will invoke another script, variables are normally set as local variables within a script. (See “Variables”.)

To extract the value from a variable, precede the variable with a dollar sign. You can enclose the variable within double quotes and the dollar sign will be interpreted by the shell for variable expansion. Variable expansion is not performed if the variable is enclosed in single quotes.

Example 12.3.

1 name="John Doe" or declare name="John Doe" # local variable 2 export NAME="John Doe" # global variable 3 echo "$name" ...