use awk to search within a string and return result as variable

Question

The code I have now

line=$(ps -A|awk '/$name/{print $1}')

doesn't seems working. What I want is use awk to search ps's output by process name and return the pid within my script

Often when pattern matching against ps(1), it helps to restrict the output to just those fields of interest, so as not to accidentally match against usernames or ttynames or whatever. Try ps -Awo pid=,comm= on your system. — pilcrow
– pilcrow, Commented Apr 19, 2013 at 17:30

Chris Seymour · Accepted Answer · 2013-04-19 17:20:10Z

4

line=$(ps -A|awk -v name="$name" '$0 ~ name{print $1}')

See here for the right ways to access the values of shell variables in awk scripts.

Chris Seymour

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answered Apr 19, 2013 at 16:53

Ed Morton

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Comments

iamauser · Accepted Answer · 2013-04-19 16:43:34Z

1

line=$(ps -A|awk '/'$name'/{print $1}')

You are missing extra quote ' for $name

answered Apr 19, 2013 at 16:43

iamauser

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No. Never do this, it is unnecessary and will lead to cryptic errors in future.