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I'm trying to assign the output of a grep command to a variable in a bash script and the variable comes up empty. When I run the following:

el_value=$(grep '<$2>.*<$2>' $1 | sed -e 's/^.*<$2/<$2/' | cut -f2 -d'>'| cut -f1 -d':')
echo "DEBUG: The value of el_value is '$el_value'"

The output is:

DEBUG: The value of el_value is ''

If I run the grep command outside of the script (and substitute the variables for real values) I get the output I'm expecting.

Here is a snippet of script. Use this script and add the values listed above.

#!/bin/bash

if [ $# -ne 3 ]; then
echo 1>&2 'This script replaces xml element’s value with the one provided as a command parameter \n\n\tUsage: $0 <xml filename> <element name> <new value>'
exit 127
fi

el_value=`grep "<$2>.*<$2>" $1 | sed -e "s/^.*<$2/<$2/" | cut -f2 -d'>'| cut -f1 -d':'`
echo "DEBUG: The value of el_value is '$el_value'"
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2
  • Something happened when I posted the command. It's actually: – user34769 Mar 22 '13 at 17:37
  • el_value=$(grep '<$2>.*<$2>' $1 | sed -e 's/^.*<$2/<$2/' | cut -f2 -d'>'| cut -f1 -d':') – user34769 Mar 22 '13 at 17:39
1

Try:

el_value=$(sed -n "s/.*<$2>\([^:<]*\).*/\1/p" < "$1")

In your code the problems were:

  • single quotes around $2 which meant it wasn't expanded
  • missing / to search for the closing tag in the grep command.
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0

I think it's a quote issue. Inside your grep & sed argument, $1 and $2 are not parsed because of your simple quotes ('). Try this one :

el_value=$(grep "<$2>.*<$2>" $1 | sed -e "s/^.*<$2/<$2/" | cut -f2 -d'>'| cut -f1 -d':')
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4
  • Thanks for the reply, but I still get the same results. – user34769 Mar 22 '13 at 17:48
  • Please post some content for testing. – GHugo Mar 22 '13 at 17:59
  • Create a file called file.xml. Add this line to the file: <p4Port>server1:1986</p4Port>. Then pass in the values file.xml server1 server2 – user34769 Mar 22 '13 at 18:13
  • I think you want to do this : el_value=$(grep "<$2>.*</$2>" $1 | sed -e "s/^.*<$2/<$2/" | cut -f2 -d'>'| cut -f1 -d':'). And call it with file.xml p4Port server1. Remember that xml langage is not a regular langage, so you might find case wich your sed exp will not work. Use a xml parser and a script langage like python/ruby/perl/other – GHugo Mar 22 '13 at 18:53

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