How to assign a variable with the first two characters of a passed argument in Bash

Asked Jan 23 '20 at 19:01

Active Jan 24 '20 at 20:14

Viewed 15 times

So I want to assign a variable in bash that takes piped code from head.

first2chars=$[[ echo $1 | head -c 2 ]]

but when I want to use this I get an error of:

[ echo -n2 | head -c 2 ]: syntax error: operand expected (error token is "[ echo -n2 | head -c 2 ]")

Figured it out:

first2chars=$(echo $1 | head -c 2)

the above code works

edited Jan 24 '20 at 20:14

asked Jan 23 '20 at 19:01

Gex

What do you think `$[[ ... ]]` means? – chepner Jan 23 '20 at 19:03
do inside, like () in C – Gex Jan 23 '20 at 21:42
So, you're just making up syntax and assuming it does what you want? Languages don't work that way. – chepner Jan 23 '20 at 21:48

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