parsing inputs to shell script on command line

Question

I'm trying to assign everything else after strings to $@ but orange is also picked. I thought the shift will take as rest of the args but the output is picking orange too.

$ cat try.sh
#!/usr/bin/bash

str1="$1"
str2="$2"; shift

echo "$str1"
echo "$str2"

for i in "$@"
do
echo "rest are $i"
done

./try.sh apple orange 3 4 5
apple
orange
rest are orange
rest are 3
rest are 4
rest are 5

Type help shift in a bash session.

glenn jackman
– glenn jackman

2013-06-13 23:32:41 +00:00
Commented Jun 13, 2013 at 23:32 — glenn jackman
– glenn jackman, Commented Jun 13, 2013 at 23:32

DVK · Accepted Answer · 2013-06-13 22:39:13Z

3

You need to do shift twice to get rid of both apple and orange. a single shift will only shift off one parameter, no matter where in the code it is - it's NOT related to which parameter was last accessed/assigned from.

 str1="$1"
 str2="$2"; shift ; shift

or

 str1="$1"; shift
 str2="$1"; shift # Notice that due to prior shift, orange now is in $1, not $2

answered Jun 13, 2013 at 22:39

DVK

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1 Comment

glenn jackman Over a year ago

Or use shift 2 -- specifying the number to shift is commonly used in script that employ getopts: after parsing options, you'd use shift $((OPTIND-1))

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