CODEWITHSUNDEEP
linuxbashvariablespath
user7102066
user7102066

Reputation:

How to list $PATH?

When I echo $PATH I get: home/x/bin:home/x/.local/bin:...:... and on and on where each path is separated by :

When I echo $PATH | tr ':' '\n' I get:

home/x/bin
home/x/.local/bin
...
...

Where very path is separated by a new line

So now I want to fit all of this into a variable ($) or a script so I can execute it and it lists the path by line, but it wont work:

I tried: x=${echo $PATH | tr ':' '\n'}
but I get -bash: ${echo $PATH | tr ':' '\n'}: bad substitution

I also tried a script where:

#!/bin/bash
echo $PATH > 11
sleep 1
bb=${`tr ':' '\n' < 11`}
echo $bb

What can I do?

Upvotes: 3

Views: 7995

Answers (3)

raychi
raychi

Reputation: 2653

To expand @cyrus's Parameter Expansion idea, here's the alias version:

alias pathprint='echo "${PATH//:/$'"'"'\n'"'"'}"'

Need to use single quote ' around the aliased command to prevent $PATH from being expanded while alias is defined.

Then, escape each single quote within command as:

' => ' + "'" + '

Stop previous quote ', add a single quote using double quotes "'", followed by a single quote to resume quoting '.

Upvotes: 2

0.sh
0.sh

Reputation: 2762

you should use command substitution. Curly Braces is use for grouping $ for variable substitution. while for command substition you need backticks if you se bourn shell, but for bash you need brackets 

# Wrong
x=${echo $PATH | tr ':' '\n'}

# Right
x=$(echo $PATH | tr ':' '\n')
echo "$x"

Upvotes: 3

Cyrus
Cyrus

Reputation: 88583

Use bash's Parameter Expansion:

echo "${PATH//:/$'\n'}"

Upvotes: 8

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