Question

what does $$ mean in a shell script

Asked by: vmwarecv1

Hi,

In one of scripts I am looking at there is an output being directed to a file
the notation is like this
grep -v xyz > file1.$$
and then later on they are deleting file1.$$ (that's something else)

I was wondering what does $$ mean, any idea.

Thanks in advance.

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Asked On
2009-03-18 at 11:25:14ID24242893
Tags

shell scripting

Topics

Bourne Shell (sh)

,

Bourne-Again Shell (bash)

,

KornShell (ksh)

Participating Experts
3
Points
125
Comments
10

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Answers

 

by: ozoPosted on 2009-03-18 at 11:27:42ID: 23921935

man sh

       $      Expands to the process ID of the shell.  In a  ()  subshell,  it
              expands  to  the  process  ID of the current shell, not the sub-
              shell.

 

by: SaedSalmanPosted on 2009-03-18 at 11:28:55ID: 23921952

You can see system variables by giving command like $ set

http://freeos.com/guides/lsst/ch02sec02.html

 

by: vmwarecv1Posted on 2009-03-18 at 11:34:01ID: 23922005

It has 2 $'s

file1.$$

 

by: ozoPosted on 2009-03-18 at 11:38:11ID: 23922053

All parameters are indicated with $
in this case, the name of the parameter is also $

 

by: ozoPosted on 2009-03-18 at 11:42:16ID: 23922099

Or rather, parameter expansion is indicated by $

       The `$' character introduces parameter expansion, command substitution,
       or arithmetic expansion.  The parameter name or symbol to  be  expanded
       may  be enclosed in braces, which are optional but serve to protect the
       variable to be expanded from characters immediately following it  which
       could be interpreted as part of the name.

       ${parameter}
              The value of parameter is substituted.  The braces are  required
              when  parameter  is  a  positional  parameter with more than one
              digit, or when parameter is followed by a character which is not
              to be interpreted as part of its name.

in this case, the name of the parameter is also $

 

by: ozoPosted on 2009-03-18 at 11:45:06ID: 23922126

If more than one shell script is running at the same time
 > file1.$$
would ensure that the different invocations write to different files, so that they don't interfere with each other.

 

by: SaedSalmanPosted on 2009-03-18 at 11:46:14ID: 23922132

$$ :Process ID of the script itself. The $$ variable often finds use in scripts to construct "unique" temp file names

http://tldp.org/LDP/abs/html/internalvariables.html#PROCCID

 

by: omarfaridPosted on 2009-03-18 at 18:07:07ID: 23925498

When you need to create a temp file to capture some output, then you need to have a unique name somehow. When you run a script then a process is created and that process has a unique id for its life time. So, you can always attach the process id to a file name to make it unique at that time. Each process has a set of env variables and its process id is referred to by $. env variables values are accessed via evaluation operator $. so to get the process id you use $$.

 

by: ozoPosted on 2009-03-18 at 22:42:23ID: 23926631

process id is not an environment variable,
environment variables are inherited by child processes. process id is not,
nor are most shell parameters referred to by $ unless they are exported to an environment variable

20120131-EE-VQP-002

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