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From: frank@zen.co.uk (Frank Wales)
Newsgroups: comp.unix.questions
Subject: Re: Why doesn't this work ?
Message-ID: <1679@zen.co.uk>
Date: 4 Aug 89 10:02:57 GMT
References: <443@fdmetd.uucp> <579@lakart.UUCP> <4900@ptsfa.PacBell.COM>
Reply-To: frank@zen.UUCP (Frank Wales)
Organization: Zengrange Limited, Leeds, England
Lines: 17

In article <4900@ptsfa.PacBell.COM> dmt@PacBell.COM (Dave Turner) writes:
>jon@fdmetd.uucp (Jon Ivar Tr|stheim) sez:
>> Why does not the following command work in a Bourne shell script ?
>> 	USERID=`expr "`id`" : 'uid=\([0-9]*\)(.*'`
>
>escape the inner backquotes:
>
>	USERID=`expr "\`id\`" : 'uid=\([0-9]*\)(.*'`
>
>This works on the Bourne and Korn shells using System V R2.1 on a 3B20.

On Korn shell only, you can also use the form $(command) instead of
`command`, which nests and is more readable for complicated
command substitutions.
--
Frank Wales, Systems Manager,        [frank@zen.co.uk<->mcvax!zen.co.uk!frank]
Zengrange Ltd., Greenfield Rd., Leeds, ENGLAND, LS9 8DB. (+44) 532 489048 x217