Function return string in a shell script - Programming On Unix

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Tristelune Tristelune Offline | 07-08-2015, 01:22 PM | #1
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Hello,

I'm writing a shell script and I have the following problem: I need to return a value from a function in my shell script. I use sh as shell. So until now I have use echo and everything were fine.

I came to the idea to improve my script by displaying what is done in the functions I have written. So I have multiple echo's in my function and the last echo is not the returned value. An Example:

Code:
#! /bin/sh

function coucou() {
    echo "This is a try"
}

result=$(coucou)
echo $result

The script returns

Code:
This is a try

which was expected. Now if I try

Code:
#! /bin/sh

function coucou() {
    echo "This is a try"
    echo "End of function"
}

result=$(coucou)
echo $result

I get

Code:
This is a try End of function

So the echo's are concatenated. I don't know very well what happens, I assume because of the construct $(..) nothing is displayed on the terminal and all echo's are stored in the variable result. Does it work like that ?

In my case it's something like

Code:
function rename(){
      filename=$1
      new_filename=${%.pdf}.txt

      echo "The file $filename will be renamed in $new_filename"
      mv $filename $new_filename

      echo $new_filename
}

file=my_file.pdf
new_filename=$(rename $file)

It's simplified. But the idea is the same: I have some conditions to rename a file and I want to return the new filename if the file has been renamed. But in the same time I want to display some information on the terminal for the user. What are the options ?

Thank you!


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Function return string in a shell script - by Tristelune - 07-08-2015, 01:22 PM

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