Question

I’ve got a small script which is returning a string/path. This path is an executable, how can I run the executable? Thank you.

Example:
my_command commands other commands … returns /home/mydesktop/myexecutable
I’d need to execute /home/mydesktop/myexecutable

Answer 1

You could try this:

`your_command args etc`

The backticks get replaced by the output of the command and that is then evaluated. Since it is at the start of the input line, bash tries to execute it.

This is a handy trick to know, since you can use it for all sorts of fun:

cp your_file .backup/`date "+%Y-%m-%d"`_your_file

will prepend the current date to a copy of your file for poor mans backup…

EDIT: In the comments, we learned, that you should actually be using the $() syntax. So, that amounts to:

$(your_command args etc)

and

cp your_file .backup/$(date "+%Y-%m-%d")_your_file

since you can nest this…