How to pass argument in shell script of linux/solaris

Interview Questions for Linux Administrator

Learning shell scripting is very easy but we need to start it from basic of shell scripting tutorial. I am writing this article because of many of us confused about these two operators.

There are many ways to pass argument to unix shell script as follows:

Pass command line argument:

1.       In this you don't need to give arguments in double quotes. You can use this argument in script as $1,$2,and $3. Assigned value becomes $1=10, $2=20,$3=30.

$ sh test.sh 10 20 30       

2.       If argument contains space or wild card character then need to put it in double quotes.  You will get these arguments in script as $1="first Argument" and $2="Second Argument".

$sh test.sh "first Argument" "Second Argument"                                             

Shift Operator in Solaris/Linux:

3.       If there are more than 10 arguments and you want to pass from command line then you need to use shift operator.

$sh test.sh 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80 90 100 110 120 130

$vi test.sh

#!/bin/bash

echo $1                                                //10

echo $2                                                //20

echo $7                                                //70

echo $9                                                //90

shift;

echo $9                                                //100

shift 2;

echo $8                                                //110

echo $9                                                //120

Instead of shift operator you can use echo ${10} or echo {11} like this. In this way, you can go ahead with more arguments.

Know more about :  Linux Shell scripting tutorial

4.       If you are giving command line input to script then you can use $* or $@ to display all argument as comma separated and considering a single string. For example:

$sh test.sh 10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80 90 100 110 120 130

$vi test.sh

#!/bin/bash

echo $*                                                //10

and  output is as

10 20 30 40 50 60 70 80 90 100 110 120 130

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