Question

I’m getting an error trying to write the output of a command into a variable, which is defined in a function.

chk()
        hostsum=$(md5sum /etc/hosts | awk -F" " '{print $1}')
chk

It tells me about a syntax error:

./testchk.sh: Zeile 3: Syntaxfehler beim unerwarteten Wort
hostsum=$(md5sum /etc/hosts | awk -F" " '{print $1}')' ./testchk.sh:
Zeile 3: hostsum=$(md5sum /etc/hosts | awk -F” ” ‘{print $1}’)’

It works outer the function, but just won’t because of the function adding some extra quotes.
Any ideas except using it out of the function?

Answer 1

I think you just need to add braces:

chk() { hostsum=$(md5sum /etc/hosts | awk -F" " '{print $1}') ; }

Works fine for me here. The bash man page says that a function has to contain a compound command, of which { list ; } is one example.