I need to scan a file and pull the first line of data. I need to use this result later in the shell script.

Right now I am using:

sed -n 1,1p invoice.tst

This works but I can't seem to redirect the output to a variable. I've tried....

sed -n 1,1p invoice.tst $VAR
and a few other formats....

any thoughts out there?

Thanks,
Doug.

head -1 yourFile | read theVariable

or


theVariable=$(head -1 yourFile)

or

...


HTH

Works great thanks,

Doug.

alternatively with backquotes

theVariable=`head -1 yourFile`

I've been away from shell scripting for a while and now I'm seeing more constructs like your reply than the backquotes style. Is there any reason to favour one over the other? Does the former not have to spawn a sub-shell or something?

Thanks.

I guess it's mainly due to the rise and rise of Linux (and hence Bash). The clear advantage of $() over `` is that it can be nested (e.g. $( $() ) ), whereas backticks cannot.