Question

In an inline shell, I type echo $(max 15 2) but don’t get any answer?

Why is it so?

Code:

function max {
  if [ "$1" -eq "$2" ]
  then
    return $1
  else
    if [ "$1" -gt "$2" ]
    then
      return $1
    else
      return $2
    fi
  fi
}

Answer 1

From the comments :

• Replace return with echo and your code works fine. – Blender

• The $(...) syntax is specifically designed to give you the output of a command, even if that command happens to be a function call. return in a function is similar to exit for the script as a whole; it sets its status, which is an integer in the range 0 to 255. (This is quite different from other languages you might be used to, where return is used to return a value from a function.) – Keith Thompson

• Bash functions are not like functions in other languages. They behave the same as any other command: they can take command line arguments, read from standard input, write to standard output and standard error, and return with an exit status. They don’t–strictly speaking–return a computed value. – chepner