How to save output of AWS CLI in a variable?

Question

I want to save output of an AWS CLI in a variable and use that variable in another AWS CLI, what I did is as follows:

taskarn= aws ecs list-tasks --cluster  mycluster --service-name "myService" --region "eu-west-1" --output text | grep "arn" | tr -d '"'

echo  $taskarn;  //empty
aws ecs stop-task --cluster mycluster --task $taskarn --region "eu-west-1"

when I echo $taskarn, it is empty.

Any help would be appreciated.

score 7 · Accepted Answer · answered May 30 '18 at 10:37

7

I used the following command and it works fine:

taskarn=$(aws ecs list-tasks --cluster  mycluster --service-name "myservice" --region "eu-west-1" | grep "arn" | tr -d '"')
echo  $taskarn;

aws ecs stop-task --cluster mycluster --task $taskarn --region "eu-west-1"

answered May 30 '18 at 10:37

Matrix

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When I run this, I get `bash: [the-name-of-my-task-arn]: command not found` error saved as the output to my variable – Yu Chen Oct 07 '18 at 20:46
@Matrix How to access the values by keys? – BartusZak Mar 17 '21 at 15:34

score 1 · Answer 2 · answered May 25 '18 at 19:53

1

Use backquote to execute the command and assign the result to the variable.

taskarn=`aws ecs list-tasks --cluster  mycluster --service-name "myService" --region "eu-west-1" --output text | grep "arn" | tr -d '"'`

But the correct way is to use the --query option of the CLI to extract what you want.

answered May 25 '18 at 19:53

helloV

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and what if the result is a dictionary? how to access the values by keys? – Suncatcher Dec 02 '20 at 16:55

How to save output of AWS CLI in a variable?

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