I have got this code in file scr.sh:
#!/bin/sh
string='ps -e | less'
$string
And when I execute this script it doesn't work. Why? What I should do to execute command from string variable in shell script?
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1 Answer
It's better to store commands in functions rather than in variables. Functions are great at it. Variables, not at all.
string() {
ps -e | less
}
string
You could use eval to execute a command that has redirections (>, <) and pipes (|), but I strongly discourage you from doing so.
eval "$string" # please don't
3 Comments
alvits
Or if it isn't too much to fork then a simple
bash -c $string would suffice. Although this method is not as good as a function, it will do the job nonetheless.alvits
I should also mention,
bash -c $string is as bad as eval $string.
dm-kiselev
Why don't use
eval? Only it works in this case. Because really I need to read string from keyboard, doing something with it and then execute.