How to capture the output of a bash command into a variable when using pipes and apostrophe? [duplicate] - linux

This question already has answers here:
How do I set a variable to the output of a command in Bash?
(15 answers)
Closed 6 years ago.
I am not sure how to save the output of a command via bash into a variable:
PID = 'ps -ef | grep -v color=auto | grep raspivid | awk '{print $2}''
Do I have to use a special character for the apostrophe or for the pipes?
Thanks!

To capture the output of a command in shell, use command substitution: $(...). Thus:
pid=$(ps -ef | grep -v color=auto | grep raspivid | awk '{print $2}')
Notes
When making an assignment in shell, there must be no spaces around the equal sign.
When defining shell variables for local use, it is best practice to use lower case or mixed case. Variables that are important to the system are defined in upper case and you don't want to accidentally overwrite one of them.
Simplification
If the goal is to get the PID of the raspivid process, then the grep and awk can be combined into a single process:
pid=$(ps -ef | awk '/[r]aspivid/{print $2}')
Note the simple trick that excludes the current process from the output: instead of searching for raspivid we search for [r]aspivid. The string [r]aspivid does not match the regular expression [r]aspivid. Hence the current process is removed from the output.
The Flexibility of awk
For the purpose of showing how awk can replace multiple calls to grep, consider this scenario: suppose that we want to find lines that contain raspivid but that do not contain color=auto. With awk, both conditions can be combined logically:
pid=$(ps -ef | awk '/raspivid/ && !/color=auto/{print $2}')
Here, /raspivid/ requires a match with raspivid. The && symbol means logical "and". The ! before the regex /color=auto/ means logical "not". Thus, /raspivid/ && !/color=auto/ matches only on lines that contain raspivid but not color=auto.

A more straightforward approach:
pid=$(pgrep raspivid)
... or a little different
echo pgrep [t]eleport

Related

display all the ssh pids where the users are connected to in one line [duplicate]

This question already has answers here:
How to join multiple lines of filenames into one with custom delimiter
(22 answers)
Closed 7 years ago.
How can I display all the ssh pids where the users are connected to in one line separated by comma ?
This command displays the output in multiple lines, I would like to have the output in one line.
ps aux | grep -i "ssh" | awk '{print $2}'
from
1325
3255
2323
5321
3252
To
1325, 3255, 2323, 5321, 3252
Thank You!
You may want to use pgrep to get the processes IDs directly:
$ pgrep ssh
1217
5305
This way, you avoid calling ps aux and parsing its output, which will always contain the grep itself.
To join them on a ,-separated list, use paste on a -serial mode:
$ pgrep ssh | paste -s -d,
1217,5305
You could use sed utility in another pipe, so the command would be:
ps aux | grep -i "ssh" | awk '{print $2}' | sed ':a;{N;s/\n/, /};ba'
Where you are in fact replacing new lines (except the final one) by commas.

Single Quote issue with gawk and shell script

I am writing a small script to map all the current memory being used by services running in a server. However, I am facing a problem doing that. My script is quite simple. I'm using pmap to find out memory being used and trying add up all the pid of a service running.
#!/bin/bash
result=`$pgrep java`
wc=`$pmap -x $result | wc -l`
gawk=`$pmap -x $result | gawk 'NR==$wc{print $3}'`
echo "$gawk"
Now, my problem is that gawk uses single quote when searching for a specific pattern (gawk 'NR==$wc{print $3}') but shell script gives me error because then meaning of single quote is different in shell from gawk.
Based on your comment, it looks like you're trying to do this:
pmap -x "$(pgrep java)" | awk '{s=$3}END{print s}'
This prints the third column of the last line of the output of pmap -x, with the PID of the running java process. In some versions of awk, you can simply do 'END{print $3}' but this isn't guaranteed to work.
pmap -x $result | gawk 'NR==$wc{print $3}' is not doing what you think it is. (I have replaced your $pmap with pmap, but my analysis is only of the gawk command so if that is incorrect it should be irrelevant.) The shell is going to pass the literal string NR==$wc{print $3} to awk, but it appears that you want awk to see the value of the shell variable $wc rather than the literal string $wc. When awk sees $wc, it treats wc an an uninitialized value, so $wc become equivalent to $0, and awk will print any line whose content matches the line number. The standard way to pass the shell variable into awk is:
pmap -x $result | gawk 'NR==w{print $3}' w=$wc
This assignes the shell variable wc to the awk variable w, and will print the third column of that line.
Note that there are a number of issues with this shell script, but this seems to be the core confusion.

Saving awk output to variable [duplicate]

This question already has an answer here:
Shell script, saving the command value to a variable
(1 answer)
Closed 9 years ago.
Can anyone help me out with this problem?
I'm trying to save the awk output into a variable.
variable = `ps -ef | grep "port 10 -" | grep -v "grep port 10 -"| awk '{printf "%s", $12}'`
printf "$variable"
EDIT: $12 corresponds to a parameter running on that process.
Thanks!
#!/bin/bash
variable=`ps -ef | grep "port 10 -" | grep -v "grep port 10 -" | awk '{printf $12}'`
echo $variable
Notice that there's no space after the equal sign.
You can also use $() which allows nesting and is readable.
I think the $() syntax is easier to read...
variable=$(ps -ef | grep "port 10 -" | grep -v "grep port 10 -"| awk '{printf "%s", $12}')
But the real issue is probably that $12 should not be qouted with ""
Edited since the question was changed, This returns valid data, but it is not clear what the expected output of ps -ef is and what is expected in variable.
as noted earlier, setting bash variables does not allow whitespace between the variable name on the LHS, and the variable value on the RHS, of the '=' sign.
awk can do everything and avoid the "awk"ward extra 'grep'. The use of awk's printf is to not add an unnecessary "\n" in the string which would give perl-ish matcher programs conniptions. The variable/parameter expansion for your case in bash doesn't have that issue, so either of these work:
variable=$(ps -ef | awk '/port 10 \-/ {print $12}')
variable=`ps -ef | awk '/port 10 \-/ {print $12}'`
The '-' int the awk record matching pattern removes the need to remove awk itself from the search results.
variable=$(ps -ef | awk '/[p]ort 10/ {print $12}')
The [p] is a neat trick to remove the search from showing from ps
#Jeremy
If you post the output of ps -ef | grep "port 10", and what you need from the line, it would be more easy to help you getting correct syntax

How to pass AWK output into variable?

I have a small bash script that greps/awk paragraph by using a keyword.
But after adding in the extra codes : set var = "(......)" it only prints a blank line and not the paragraph.
So I would like to ask if anyone knows how to properly pass the awk output into a variable for outputting?
My codes:
#!/bin/sh
set var = "(awk 'BEGIN{RS=ORS="\n\n";FS=OFS="\n"}/FileHeader/' /root/Desktop
/logs/Default.log)"
echo $var;
Thanks!
Use command substitution to capture the output of a process.
#!/bin/sh
VAR="$(awk 'BEGIN{RS=ORS="\n\n";FS=OFS="\n"}/FileHeader/' /root/Desktop/logs/Default.log)"
echo "$VAR"
some general advice with regards to shell scripting:
(almost) always quote every variable reference.
never put spaces around the equals sign in variable assignment.
You need to use "command substitution". Place the command inside either backticks, `COMMAND` or, in a pair of parentheses preceded by a dollar sign, $(COMMAND).
To set a variable you don't use set and you can't have spaces before and after the =.
Try this:
var=$(awk 'BEGIN{RS=ORS="\n\n";FS=OFS="\n"}/FileHeader/' /root/Desktop/logs/Default.log)
echo $var
You gave me the idea of this for killing a process :). Just chromium to whatever process you wanna kill.
Try this:
VAR=$(ps -ef | grep -i chromium | awk '{print $2}'); kill -9 $VAR 2>/dev/null; unset VAR;
anytime you see grep piped to awk, you can drop the grep. for the above,
awk '/^password/ {print $2}'
awk can easily replace any text command like cut, tail, wc, tr etc. and especally multiple greps piped next to each other. i.e
grep some_co.mand | a | grep b ... to | awk '/a|b|and so on/ {some action}.
Try to create a variable coming from vault/Hashicorp, when using packer template variables, like so:
BUILD_PASSWORD=$(vault read secret/buildAccount| grep ^password | awk '{print $2}')
echo $BUILD_PASSWORD
You can to the same with grep ^user

Split output of command by columns using Bash?

I want to do this:
run a command
capture the output
select a line
select a column of that line
Just as an example, let's say I want to get the command name from a $PID (please note this is just an example, I'm not suggesting this is the easiest way to get a command name from a process id - my real problem is with another command whose output format I can't control).
If I run ps I get:
PID TTY TIME CMD
11383 pts/1 00:00:00 bash
11771 pts/1 00:00:00 ps
Now I do ps | egrep 11383 and get
11383 pts/1 00:00:00 bash
Next step: ps | egrep 11383 | cut -d" " -f 4. Output is:
<absolutely nothing/>
The problem is that cut cuts the output by single spaces, and as ps adds some spaces between the 2nd and 3rd columns to keep some resemblance of a table, cut picks an empty string. Of course, I could use cut to select the 7th and not the 4th field, but how can I know, specially when the output is variable and unknown on beforehand.
One easy way is to add a pass of tr to squeeze any repeated field separators out:
$ ps | egrep 11383 | tr -s ' ' | cut -d ' ' -f 4
I think the simplest way is to use awk. Example:
$ echo "11383 pts/1 00:00:00 bash" | awk '{ print $4; }'
bash
Please note that the tr -s ' ' option will not remove any single leading spaces. If your column is right-aligned (as with ps pid)...
$ ps h -o pid,user -C ssh,sshd | tr -s " "
1543 root
19645 root
19731 root
Then cutting will result in a blank line for some of those fields if it is the first column:
$ <previous command> | cut -d ' ' -f1
19645
19731
Unless you precede it with a space, obviously
$ <command> | sed -e "s/.*/ &/" | tr -s " "
Now, for this particular case of pid numbers (not names), there is a function called pgrep:
$ pgrep ssh
Shell functions
However, in general it is actually still possible to use shell functions in a concise manner, because there is a neat thing about the read command:
$ <command> | while read a b; do echo $a; done
The first parameter to read, a, selects the first column, and if there is more, everything else will be put in b. As a result, you never need more variables than the number of your column +1.
So,
while read a b c d; do echo $c; done
will then output the 3rd column. As indicated in my comment...
A piped read will be executed in an environment that does not pass variables to the calling script.
out=$(ps whatever | { read a b c d; echo $c; })
arr=($(ps whatever | { read a b c d; echo $c $b; }))
echo ${arr[1]} # will output 'b'`
The Array Solution
So we then end up with the answer by #frayser which is to use the shell variable IFS which defaults to a space, to split the string into an array. It only works in Bash though. Dash and Ash do not support it. I have had a really hard time splitting a string into components in a Busybox thing. It is easy enough to get a single component (e.g. using awk) and then to repeat that for every parameter you need. But then you end up repeatedly calling awk on the same line, or repeatedly using a read block with echo on the same line. Which is not efficient or pretty. So you end up splitting using ${name%% *} and so on. Makes you yearn for some Python skills because in fact shell scripting is not a lot of fun anymore if half or more of the features you are accustomed to, are gone. But you can assume that even python would not be installed on such a system, and it wasn't ;-).
try
ps |&
while read -p first second third fourth etc ; do
if [[ $first == '11383' ]]
then
echo got: $fourth
fi
done
Your command
ps | egrep 11383 | cut -d" " -f 4
misses a tr -s to squeeze spaces, as unwind explains in his answer.
However, you maybe want to use awk, since it handles all of these actions in a single command:
ps | awk '/11383/ {print $4}'
This prints the 4th column in those lines containing 11383. If you want this to match 11383 if it appears in the beginning of the line, then you can say ps | awk '/^11383/ {print $4}'.
Using array variables
set $(ps | egrep "^11383 "); echo $4
or
A=( $(ps | egrep "^11383 ") ) ; echo ${A[3]}
Similar to brianegge's awk solution, here is the Perl equivalent:
ps | egrep 11383 | perl -lane 'print $F[3]'
-a enables autosplit mode, which populates the #F array with the column data.
Use -F, if your data is comma-delimited, rather than space-delimited.
Field 3 is printed since Perl starts counting from 0 rather than 1
Getting the correct line (example for line no. 6) is done with head and tail and the correct word (word no. 4) can be captured with awk:
command|head -n 6|tail -n 1|awk '{print $4}'
Instead of doing all these greps and stuff, I'd advise you to use ps capabilities of changing output format.
ps -o cmd= -p 12345
You get the cmmand line of a process with the pid specified and nothing else.
This is POSIX-conformant and may be thus considered portable.
Bash's set will parse all output into position parameters.
For instance, with set $(free -h) command, echo $7 will show "Mem:"

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