Very easy question but I really can't find this when I Google. Sorry! I'm trying to write a script that runs a user's command that he or she enters but I can't run the command that the user enters.
#!/bin/bash
echo -e "Enter a Command: "
read $COMMAND
echo "Output: $COMMAND" # I can't figure how to implement and print the command
Enter a Command: ls Output: folder1 folder2 folder3 test.txt)
All you need is to delete the dollar sign from the read command
#!/bin/bash
echo "Enter a Command: "
read COMMAND
echo "Output: $COMMAND"
Happy scripting!, please don't forget to marked as answered ;)
$ to get the value of a variable, not to set the value. So you don't use $ when reading into a variable, assigning to it with =, etc.
$ to set the value of a variable. read, however, takes the name of a variable as its argument, which can be the result of a parameter expansion. COMMAND=foo; read $COMMAND is equivalent to read foo.Use eval to execute a command from a variable.
Also, you don't put $ before the variable name in the read command. That's only used when you want to get the variable's value.
#!/bin/bash
echo -e "Enter a Command: "
read COMMAND
echo Output:
eval "$COMMAND"
Thanks! This answered my question:
#!/bin/bash echo -e "Enter a Command: " read COMMAND echo Output: eval "$COMMAND"
