Store output of sed into a variable

Question

I want to store the second line of my file into a variable, so I am doing this:

sed -n '2p' myfile

I wish to store the output of the sed command into a variable named line.

What is the correct syntax to do this?

score 155 · Accepted Answer · answered Jul 19 '11 at 14:51

155

line=$(sed -n '2p' myfile)
echo "$line"

Also note that there is no space around the = sign.

answered Jul 19 '11 at 14:51

dogbane

This also hangs....I'm starting to think that I don't fully understand the issue I'm having. – Jul 19 '11 at 14:52
Are you using the exact command that I said? – dogbane Jul 19 '11 at 14:55
of course....I did an update and now it works. Thank you all very much – Jul 19 '11 at 14:57

score 35 · Answer 2 · edited Jul 03 '17 at 12:14

35

In general,

variable=$(command)

or

variable=`command`

The latter one is the old syntax, prefer $(command).

Note: variable = .... means execute the command variable with the first argument =, the second ....

edited Jul 03 '17 at 12:14

Jakob Weisblat

answered Jul 19 '11 at 14:49

Karoly Horvath

I've tried this...it isn't working line = `sed -n '2p' myfile` just hangs... – Jul 19 '11 at 14:50
the second way worked for me, thank you @KarolyHorvath :) – Nozim Apr 10 '14 at 06:31

score 7 · Answer 3 · edited Sep 17 '20 at 07:04

7

To store the third line into a variable, use below syntax:

variable=`echo "$1" | sed '3q;d' urfile`

To store the changed line into a variable, use below syntax: variable=echo 'overflow' | sed -e "s/over/"OVER"/g" output:OVERflow

edited Sep 17 '20 at 07:04

Community

answered Apr 10 '14 at 09:25

tamajit

score -1 · Answer 4 · edited Oct 07 '13 at 05:59

-1

line=`sed -n 2p myfile`
echo $line

edited Oct 07 '13 at 05:59

devnull

answered Oct 07 '13 at 05:56

Adam

4 Answers4