Bash removing duplicate in a string list of argument $# - bash

In an bash shell script I am receiving a list of argument in $# which are : a b c d a c e
Depending of the argument I need to do something specific with a case structure.
But I only want to do it for a b c d e
I should only use bash and not any other language...I can use awk for example
for argument in "$#"
do
case $argument in
a)
.....
Have tried many things but without success
Any help much appreciated

Use an associative array to track arguments you've already seen. Note that this requires bash 4.0 or later; the 3.2.x release that Apple ships is too old, as it only supports numerically-indexed arrays (declare -a, but not declare -A).
#!/usr/bin/env bash
case $BASH_VERSION in ''|[0-3].*) echo "ERROR: Bash 4.0+ required" >&2; exit 1;; esac
declare -A seen=( )
declare -a deduped=( )
for arg in "$#"; do # iterate over our argument list
[[ ${seen[$arg]} ]] && continue # already seen this? skip it
seen[$arg]=1 # mark as seen going forward...
deduped+=( "$arg" ) # ...and add to our new/future argv
done
set -- "${deduped[#]}" # replace "$#" with contents of deduped array

You could print, then sort unique, then print quoted the list and re-eval into arguments. With GNU tools:
set -- a b c d a c e
tmp=$(printf "%s\0" "$#" | sort -uz | xargs -0 printf "%q ")
eval set -- "$tmp"

Related

Pass an array via command-line to be handled with getopts()

I try to pass some parameters to my .bash file.
terminal:
arr=("E1" "E2" "E3")
param1=("foo")
param2=("bar")
now I want to call my execute.bash file.
execute.bash -a ${arr[#]} -p $param1 -c param2
this is my file:
execute.bash:
while getopts ":a:p:c:" opt; do
case $opt in
a) ARRAY=${OPTARG};;
p) PARAM1=${OPTARG};;
c) PARAM2=${OPTARG};;
\?) exit "Invalid option -$OPTARG";;
esac
done
for a in "${ARRAY[#]}"; do
echo "$a"
done
echo "$PARAM1"
echo "$PARAM2"
But my file only prints:
E1
foo
bar
Whats the problem with my script?
Expanding all values in the array using ${arr[#]} expands each value as a separate command-line argument, so getopt only sees the first value as the parameter to the "-a" option.
If you expand using ${arr[*]} then all of the array values are expanded into a single command-line argument, so getopt can see all of the values in the array as a single argument to the "-a" option.
There are a couple of other issues: you need to quote the values on the command line:
< execute.bash -a ${arr[#]} -p $param1 -c param2
> execute.bash -a "${arr[*]}" -p $param1 -c $param2
and use braces around ${OPTARG} in the getopt processing to make it an array assignment:
< a) ARRAY=${OPTARG};;
> a) ARRAY=(${OPTARG});;
after making these changes, I get this output:
E1
E2
E3
foo
bar
which I think is what you are expecting.
You have a problem with passing the array as one of the parameter for the -a flag. Arrays in bash get expanded in command line before the actual script is invoked. The "${array[#]}" expansions outputs words separated by white-space
So your script is passed as
-a "E1" "E2" "E3" -p foo -c bar
So with the getopts() call to the argument OPTARG for -a won't be populated with not more than the first value, i.e. only E1. One would way to achieve this is to use the array expansion of type "${array[*]}" which concatenates the string with the default IFS (white-space), so that -a now sees one string with the words of the array concatenated, i.e. as if passed as
-a "E1 E2 E3" -p foo -c bar
I've emphasized the quote to show arg for -a will be received in getopts()
#!/usr/bin/env bash
while getopts ":a:p:c:" opt; do
case $opt in
a) ARRAY="${OPTARG}";;
p) PARAM1="${OPTARG}";;
c) PARAM2="${OPTARG}";;
\?) exit "Invalid option -$OPTARG";;
esac
done
# From the received string ARRAY we are basically re-constructing another
# array splitting on the default IFS character which can be iterated over
# as in your input example
read -r -a splitArray <<<"$ARRAY"
for a in "${splitArray[#]}"; do
echo "$a"
done
echo "$PARAM1"
echo "$PARAM2"
and now call the script with args as. Note that you are using param1 and param2 are variables but your definition seems to show it as an array. Your initialization should just look like
arr=("E1" "E2" "E3")
param1="foo"
param2="bar"
and invoked as
-a "${arr[*]}" -p "$param1" -c "$param2"
A word of caution would be to ensure that the words in the array arr don't already contain words that contain spaces. Reading them back as above in that case would have a problem of having those words split because the nature of IFS handling in bash. In that case though use a different de-limiter say |, # while passing the array expansion.
If I want to export the array MY_ARRAY, I use at caller side:
[[ $MY_ARRAY ]] && export A_MY_ARRAY=$(declare -p MY_ARRAY)
... and at at sub script side:
[[ $A_MY_ARRAY =~ ^declare ]] && eval $A_MY_ARRAY
The concept works for parameters too. At caller side:
SUB_SCRIPT "$(declare -p MY_ARRAY)"
... and at at sub script side:
[[ $1 =~ ^declare ]] && eval $1
The only issue of both solution is, that the variable names are the same at both sides. This can be changed if replacing the variable name before expanding it.

How to fetch last argument and stop before last arguments in shell script?

I want to merge all files into one. Here, the last argument is the destination file name.
I want to take last argument and then in loop stop before last arguments.
Here code is given that I want to implement:
echo "No. of Argument : $#"
for i in $* - 1
do
echo $i
cat $i >> last argument(file)
done
How to achieve that?
Using bash:
fname=${!#}
for a in "${#:1:$# - 1}"
do
echo "$a"
cat "$a" >>"$fname"
done
In bash, the last argument to a script is ${!#}. So, that is where we get the file name.
bash also allows selecting elements from an array. To start with a simple example, observe:
$ set -- a b c d e f
$ echo "${#}"
a b c d e f
$ echo "${#:2:4}"
b c d e
In our case, we want to select elements from the first to the second to last. The first is number 1. The last is number $#. We want to select all but the last. WE thus want $# - 1 elements of the array. Therefore, to select the arguments from the first to the second to last, we use:
${#:1:$# - 1}
A POSIX-compliant method:
eval last_arg=\$$#
while [ $# -ne 1 ]; do
echo "$1"
cat "$1" >> "$last_arg"
shift
done
Here, eval is safe, because you are only expanding a read-only parameter in the string that eval will execute. If you don't want to unset the positional parameters via shift, you can iterate over them, using a counter to break out of the loop early.
eval last_arg=\$$#
i=1
for arg in "$#"; do
echo "$arg"
cat "$arg" >> "$last_arg"
i=$((i+1))
if [ "$i" = "$#" ]; then
break
fi
done

Bash script: internal function alias for longer arguments

Suppose I have defined an array, like this:
DIR=(A B Supercalifragilistic)
and I need to invoke the script as
./script A B Supercalifragilistic
where the arguments are processed by internal functions func1() and func2(). Is there a way to make an alias (or anything, however it's called) S for Supercalifragilistic so that when I invoke:
./script A B S
the internal functions will process/interpret S as Supercalifragilistic?
Thank you in advance.
[edit]
I should add that the script is invoked via terminal, not inside a script, and the arguments A B Supercalifragilistic, or (hopefully) S, are passed on to the script in the terminal. I'm sorry for the confusion.
[edit2]
The script is here: Bash script: if any argument is "N" then function has extra options , in the answer below. What it does is explained in the OP there, below the script. Finally, instead of DIR=(A B C D E F) it's DIR=(A B Clarification D E F) (it's just an example) and the folder Clarification is the only one in a different path than the rest. I hope it's more clear now, if not, please tell me.
[final edit, I hope]
I think I can shout "Evrika!". Your word "hardcoded" made me realize I have to modify the script anytime a new folder gets added/deleted, so I thought of making the array dynamic, as in
./script a b "d e" g results in array=(a b "d e" g)
but also that it should replace the long paths with some short ones (Clarification >> C), so I made this test script based on also the answers here:
#!/bin/bash
array=()
for i in "$#"
do
if [[ "$i" == C ]]
then
array+=("Clarification")
else
array+=("$i")
fi
done
echo ${array[*]}
echo
for i in $(seq 0 $(( $# - 1 )))
do
echo ${array["$i"]}
done
and this is what it shows at command prompt:
$ ./x.sh abc C "d f" e
abc Clarification d f e
abc
Clarification
d f
e
I think now I can finally make the script to do what I want. Thank you, all, for the answers.
I really have no idea what you exactly want to achieve! But I had a look at the script you linked in your last edit. Since you have a hard-coded array you might as well instead use an associative array:
declare -A dir_h
dir_h["A"]=A
dir_h["B"]=B
dir_h["C"]=../path/Clarification
dir_h["D"]=D
dir_h["E"]=E
to loop on the keys of dir_h, i.e., on A B C D E:
for k in "${!dir_h[#]}"; do
echo "$k => ${dir_h[$k]}"
done
Try it, this might help you with your "alias" problem (or not).
Here's your script from your other post, using this technique and in a more consistent and readable form (note: I haven't tried it, there might be some minor typos, let me know if it's the case):
#!/bin/bash
# ./test.sh = 1. searches for existing archives
# 1.a. if they exist, it backups them into BKP/.
# 1.b. if not, displays a message
# 2. archives all the directories in the array list
# ./test.sh N = 1. deletes all the folder's archives existent and
# specified in the array list
# 2. archives all the directories in the array list
# ./test.sh {A..F} = 1. searches for existing archives from arguments
# 1.a. if they exist, it backups them into BKP/.
# 1.b. if not, displays a message
# 2. archives all the directories passed as arguments
# ./test.sh {A..F} N = 1. deletes all the archives matching $argument.zip
# 2. archives all the directories passed as arguments
# The directories to be backed-up/archived, all in the current (script's) path
# except "C", on a different path
declare -A dir_h
dir_h["A"]=A
dir_h["B"]=B
dir_h["C"]=../path/Clarification
dir_h["D"]=D
dir_h["E"]=E
dir_h["F"]=F
declare -A nope_h
nope_h["A"]=bogus
nope_h["B"]=bogus
nope_h["C"]=nope
nope_h["D"]=bogus
nope_h["E"]=bogus
nope_h["F"]=bogus
die() {
(($#)) && printf >&2 "%s\n" "$#"
exit 1
}
bak() {
if [[ "$1" != N ]]; then
# Check that arg is in dir list:
[[ -n ${dir_h["$1"]} ]] || die "Error in bak: argument \`$1' not handled"
if [[ -f $1.zip ]]; then
mv -vi "$1.zip" "BKP/$1.zip_$(date +"%H-%M")" || die
else
echo "$(tput setaf 1) no $1.zip$(tput sgr0)"
fi
fi
}
# The archive function, if any argument is "N", processing it is omitted. Folder
# "C" has special treatment
archive() {
if [[ $1 != N ]]; then
7z a -mx=9 "$1.zip" "${dir_h["$1"]}" -r -x\!"$1/${nope_h["$1"]}" || die
fi
}
# Let's check once for all whether N is in the arg list
foundN=0
for a in "$#"; do [[ $a = N ]] && foundN=1 && break; done
if (($#==0)); then
# case #1: no arguments
for d in "${!dir_h[#]}"; do
echo "$(tput setaf 2) backup$(tput sgr0)"
bak "$d"
archive "$d"
done
elif (($#==1)) && ((foundN)); then
# case #2: one argument, "N"
for d in "${!dir_h[#]}"; do
echo "$(tput setaf 1) no backup needed, removing$(tput sgr0)"
rm -v "$d".zip || die
archive "$d"
done
elif (($#>1)) && ((foundN)); then
# case #3: folders as arguments with "N"
for f in "$#"; do
if [[ $f != N ]]; then
echo "$(tput setaf 1) no backup needed, removing$(tput sgr0)"
rm -v "$f.zip" || die
fi
archive "$f"
done
else
for f in "$#"; do
echo "$(tput setaf 2) backup$(tput sgr0)"
bak "$f"
archive "$f"
done
fi
From this you can do a lot, and have pretty much infinite "alias" handling possibilities.
No need to use an alias. You could try something like :
$ cat test.sh
#!/bin/bash
declare -a args
for arg in "$#"; do
[[ $arg = "S" ]] && arg="Supercalifragilistic"
args+=( "$arg" )
done
for arg in "${args[#]}"; do
echo "$arg"
done
$ ./test.sh a b S e
a
b
Supercalifragilistic
e
You don't need alias here. Just set variable S to your string:
S=Supercalifragilistic
and then use:
./script A B "$S"
OR else call your script directly using array:
./script ${DIR[#]}
PS: It is not a good habit to use all caps variable names in shell and you can accidentally overwrite PATH variable some day.
You can do this:
processed_directories=()
for dir in "${directories[#]}"
do
if [ "$dir" = 'S' ]
then
dir='Supercalifragilistic'
fi
processed_directories+=("$dir")
done
It'll replace the value "S" with "Supercalifragilistic" anywhere in the array.

Listing defined functions in Bash

I'm trying to write some code in bash which uses introspection to select the appropriate function to call.
Determining the candidates requires knowing which functions are defined. It's easy to list defined variables in bash using only parameter expansion:
$ prefix_foo="one"
$ prefix_bar="two"
$ echo "${!prefix_*}"
prefix_bar prefix_foo
However, doing this for functions appears to require filtering the output of set -- a much more haphazard approach.
Is there a Right Way?
How about compgen:
compgen -A function # compgen is a shell builtin
$ declare -F
declare -f ::
declare -f _get_longopts
declare -f _longopts_func
declare -f _onexit
...
So, Jed Daniel's alias,
declare -F | cut -d" " -f3
cuts on a space and echos the 3rd field:
$ declare -F | cut -d" " -f3
::
_get_longopts
_longopts_func
_onexit
I have an entry in my .bashrc that says:
alias list='declare -F |cut -d" " -f3'
Which allows me to type list and get a list of functions. When I added it, I probably understood what was happening, but I can't remember to save my life at the moment.
Good luck,
--jed
zsh only (not what was asked for, but all the more generic questions have been closed as a duplicate of this):
typeset -f +
From man zshbuiltins:
-f The names refer to functions rather than parameters.
+ If `+' appears by itself in a separate word as the last
option, then the names of all parameters (functions with -f)
are printed, but the values (function bodies) are not.
Example:
martin#martin ~ % cat test.zsh
#!/bin/zsh
foobar()
{
echo foobar
}
barfoo()
{
echo barfoo
}
typeset -f +
Output:
martin#martin ~ % ./test.zsh
barfoo
foobar
Use the declare builtin to list currently defined functions:
declare -F
This has no issues with IFS nor globbing:
readarray -t funcs < <(declare -F)
printf '%s\n' "${funcs[#]##* }"
Of course, that needs bash 4.0.
For bash since 2.04 use (a little trickier but equivalent):
IFS=$'\n' read -d '' -a funcs < <(declare -F)
If you need that the exit code of this option is zero, use this:
IFS=$'\n' read -d '' -a funcs < <( declare -F && printf '\0' )
It will exit unsuccesful (not 0) if either declare or read fail. (Thanks to #CharlesDuffy)
One (ugly) approach is to grep through the output of set:
set \
| egrep '^[^[:space:]]+ [(][)][[:space:]]*$' \
| sed -r -e 's/ [(][)][[:space:]]*$//'
Better approaches would be welcome.
Pure Bash:
saveIFS="$IFS"
IFS=$'\n'
funcs=($(declare -F)) # create an array
IFS="$saveIFS"
funcs=(${funcs[#]##* }) # keep only what's after the last space
Then, run at the Bash prompt as an example displaying bash-completion functions:
$ for i in ${funcs[#]}; do echo "$i"; done
__ack_filedir
__gvfs_multiple_uris
_a2dismod
. . .
$ echo ${funcs[42]}
_command
This collects a list of function names matching any of a list of patterns:
functions=$(for c in $patterns; do compgen -A function | grep "^$c\$")
The grep limits the output to only exact matches for the patterns.
Check out the bash command type as a better alternative to the following. Thanks to Charles Duffy for the clue.
The following uses that to answer the title question for humans rather than shell scripts: it adds a list of function names matching the given patterns, to the regular which list of shell scripts, to answer, "What code runs when I type a command?"
which() {
for c in "$#"; do
compgen -A function |grep "^$c\$" | while read line; do
echo "shell function $line" 1>&2
done
/usr/bin/which "$c"
done
}
So,
(xkcd)Sandy$ which deactivate
shell function deactivate
(xkcd)Sandy$ which ls
/bin/ls
(xkcd)Sandy$ which .\*run_hook
shell function virtualenvwrapper_run_hook
This is arguably a violation of the Unix "do one thing" philosophy, but I've more than once been desperate because which wasn't finding a command that some package was supposed to contain, me forgetting about shell functions, so I've put this in my .profile.
#!/bin/bash
# list-defined-functions.sh
# Lists functions defined in this script.
#
# Using `compgen -A function`,
# We can save the list of functions defined before running out script,
# the compare that to a new list at the end,
# resulting in the list of newly added functions.
#
# Usage:
# bash list-defined-functions.sh # Run in new shell with no predefined functions
# list-defined-functions.sh # Run in current shell with plenty of predefined functions
#
# Example predefined function
foo() { echo 'y'; }
# Retain original function list
# If this script is run a second time, keep the list from last time
[[ $original_function_list ]] || original_function_list=$(compgen -A function)
# Create some new functions...
myfunc() { echo "myfunc is the best func"; }
function another_func() { echo "another_func is better"; }
function superfunction { echo "hey another way to define functions"; }
# ...
# function goo() { echo ok; }
[[ $new_function_list ]] || new_function_list=$(comm -13 \
<(echo $original_function_list) \
<(compgen -A function))
echo "Original functions were:"
echo "$original_function_list"
echo
echo "New Functions defined in this script:"
echo "$new_function_list"

Getting the last argument passed to a shell script

$1 is the first argument.
$# is all of them.
How can I find the last argument passed to a shell
script?
This is Bash-only:
echo "${#: -1}"
This is a bit of a hack:
for last; do true; done
echo $last
This one is also pretty portable (again, should work with bash, ksh and sh) and it doesn't shift the arguments, which could be nice.
It uses the fact that for implicitly loops over the arguments if you don't tell it what to loop over, and the fact that for loop variables aren't scoped: they keep the last value they were set to.
$ set quick brown fox jumps
$ echo ${*: -1:1} # last argument
jumps
$ echo ${*: -1} # or simply
jumps
$ echo ${*: -2:1} # next to last
fox
The space is necessary so that it doesn't get interpreted as a default value.
Note that this is bash-only.
The simplest answer for bash 3.0 or greater is
_last=${!#} # *indirect reference* to the $# variable
# or
_last=$BASH_ARGV # official built-in (but takes more typing :)
That's it.
$ cat lastarg
#!/bin/bash
# echo the last arg given:
_last=${!#}
echo $_last
_last=$BASH_ARGV
echo $_last
for x; do
echo $x
done
Output is:
$ lastarg 1 2 3 4 "5 6 7"
5 6 7
5 6 7
1
2
3
4
5 6 7
The following will work for you.
# is for array of arguments.
: means at
$# is the length of the array of arguments.
So the result is the last element:
${#:$#}
Example:
function afunction{
echo ${#:$#}
}
afunction -d -o local 50
#Outputs 50
Note that this is bash-only.
Use indexing combined with length of:
echo ${#:${##}}
Note that this is bash-only.
Found this when looking to separate the last argument from all the previous one(s).
Whilst some of the answers do get the last argument, they're not much help if you need all the other args as well. This works much better:
heads=${#:1:$#-1}
tail=${#:$#}
Note that this is bash-only.
This works in all POSIX-compatible shells:
eval last=\${$#}
Source: http://www.faqs.org/faqs/unix-faq/faq/part2/section-12.html
Here is mine solution:
pretty portable (all POSIX sh, bash, ksh, zsh) should work
does not shift original arguments (shifts a copy).
does not use evil eval
does not iterate through the whole list
does not use external tools
Code:
ntharg() {
shift $1
printf '%s\n' "$1"
}
LAST_ARG=`ntharg $# "$#"`
From oldest to newer solutions:
The most portable solution, even older sh (works with spaces and glob characters) (no loop, faster):
eval printf "'%s\n'" "\"\${$#}\""
Since version 2.01 of bash
$ set -- The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog
$ printf '%s\n' "${!#} ${#:(-1)} ${#: -1} ${#:~0} ${!#}"
dog dog dog dog dog
For ksh, zsh and bash:
$ printf '%s\n' "${#: -1} ${#:~0}" # the space beetwen `:`
# and `-1` is a must.
dog dog
And for "next to last":
$ printf '%s\n' "${#:~1:1}"
lazy
Using printf to workaround any issues with arguments that start with a dash (like -n).
For all shells and for older sh (works with spaces and glob characters) is:
$ set -- The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog "the * last argument"
$ eval printf "'%s\n'" "\"\${$#}\""
The last * argument
Or, if you want to set a last var:
$ eval last=\${$#}; printf '%s\n' "$last"
The last * argument
And for "next to last":
$ eval printf "'%s\n'" "\"\${$(($#-1))}\""
dog
If you are using Bash >= 3.0
echo ${BASH_ARGV[0]}
For bash, this comment suggested the very elegant:
echo "${#:$#}"
To silence shellcheck, use:
echo ${*:$#}
As a bonus, both also work in zsh.
shift `expr $# - 1`
echo "$1"
This shifts the arguments by the number of arguments minus 1, and returns the first (and only) remaining argument, which will be the last one.
I only tested in bash, but it should work in sh and ksh as well.
I found #AgileZebra's answer (plus #starfry's comment) the most useful, but it sets heads to a scalar. An array is probably more useful:
heads=( "${#: 1: $# - 1}" )
tail=${#:${##}}
Note that this is bash-only.
Edit: Removed unnecessary $(( )) according to #f-hauri's comment.
A solution using eval:
last=$(eval "echo \$$#")
echo $last
If you want to do it in a non-destructive way, one way is to pass all the arguments to a function and return the last one:
#!/bin/bash
last() {
if [[ $# -ne 0 ]] ; then
shift $(expr $# - 1)
echo "$1"
#else
#do something when no arguments
fi
}
lastvar=$(last "$#")
echo $lastvar
echo "$#"
pax> ./qq.sh 1 2 3 a b
b
1 2 3 a b
If you don't actually care about keeping the other arguments, you don't need it in a function but I have a hard time thinking of a situation where you would never want to keep the other arguments unless they've already been processed, in which case I'd use the process/shift/process/shift/... method of sequentially processing them.
I'm assuming here that you want to keep them because you haven't followed the sequential method. This method also handles the case where there's no arguments, returning "". You could easily adjust that behavior by inserting the commented-out else clause.
For tcsh:
set X = `echo $* | awk -F " " '{print $NF}'`
somecommand "$X"
I'm quite sure this would be a portable solution, except for the assignment.
After reading the answers above I wrote a Q&D shell script (should work on sh and bash) to run g++ on PGM.cpp to produce executable image PGM. It assumes that the last argument on the command line is the file name (.cpp is optional) and all other arguments are options.
#!/bin/sh
if [ $# -lt 1 ]
then
echo "Usage: `basename $0` [opt] pgm runs g++ to compile pgm[.cpp] into pgm"
exit 2
fi
OPT=
PGM=
# PGM is the last argument, all others are considered options
for F; do OPT="$OPT $PGM"; PGM=$F; done
DIR=`dirname $PGM`
PGM=`basename $PGM .cpp`
# put -o first so it can be overridden by -o specified in OPT
set -x
g++ -o $DIR/$PGM $OPT $DIR/$PGM.cpp
The following will set LAST to last argument without changing current environment:
LAST=$({
shift $(($#-1))
echo $1
})
echo $LAST
If other arguments are no longer needed and can be shifted it can be simplified to:
shift $(($#-1))
echo $1
For portability reasons following:
shift $(($#-1));
can be replaced with:
shift `expr $# - 1`
Replacing also $() with backquotes we get:
LAST=`{
shift \`expr $# - 1\`
echo $1
}`
echo $LAST
echo $argv[$#argv]
Now I just need to add some text because my answer was too short to post. I need to add more text to edit.
This is part of my copy function:
eval echo $(echo '$'"$#")
To use in scripts, do this:
a=$(eval echo $(echo '$'"$#"))
Explanation (most nested first):
$(echo '$'"$#") returns $[nr] where [nr] is the number of parameters. E.g. the string $123 (unexpanded).
echo $123 returns the value of 123rd parameter, when evaluated.
eval just expands $123 to the value of the parameter, e.g. last_arg. This is interpreted as a string and returned.
Works with Bash as of mid 2015.
To return the last argument of the most recently used command use the special parameter:
$_
In this instance it will work if it is used within the script before another command has been invoked.
#! /bin/sh
next=$1
while [ -n "${next}" ] ; do
last=$next
shift
next=$1
done
echo $last
Try the below script to find last argument
# cat arguments.sh
#!/bin/bash
if [ $# -eq 0 ]
then
echo "No Arguments supplied"
else
echo $* > .ags
sed -e 's/ /\n/g' .ags | tac | head -n1 > .ga
echo "Last Argument is: `cat .ga`"
fi
Output:
# ./arguments.sh
No Arguments supplied
# ./arguments.sh testing for the last argument value
Last Argument is: value
Thanks.
There is a much more concise way to do this. Arguments to a bash script can be brought into an array, which makes dealing with the elements much simpler. The script below will always print the last argument passed to a script.
argArray=( "$#" ) # Add all script arguments to argArray
arrayLength=${#argArray[#]} # Get the length of the array
lastArg=$((arrayLength - 1)) # Arrays are zero based, so last arg is -1
echo ${argArray[$lastArg]}
Sample output
$ ./lastarg.sh 1 2 buckle my shoe
shoe
Using parameter expansion (delete matched beginning):
args="$#"
last=${args##* }
It's also easy to get all before last:
prelast=${args% *}
$ echo "${*: -1}"
That will print the last argument
With GNU bash version >= 3.0:
num=$# # get number of arguments
echo "${!num}" # print last argument
Just use !$.
$ mkdir folder
$ cd !$ # will run: cd folder

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