Using a Regex with double quotations

Shell Programming and Scripting
1

Hi All,
for a script I'm writing I need to be able to put the following command in a variable:

tail -30 <file> | egrep "JBoss \(MX MicroKernel\) .* Started"

I thought surround it with single quotes would work. However, it doesnt escape the wildcard, and results in the wildcard being expanded with local files beginning with "."

I've tried a hundred other ways to get this to work. Also some ways result in the correct results when i run echo $containingVar but running the command from the variable gives me this

$var                                                                                                               
tail: invalid option -- 3
Try `tail --help' for more information.

while entering it as it appears works fine. This one has been driving me crazy so any help would be appreciated!

2

How are you exactly initialising the variable "var"? Could you please post the exact line you're using?

3

various different ways: Here's the line that In my opinion should work:

$serverCheck='tail -30 /dir1/dir2/dir3/file.log | egrep "JBoss \(MX MicroKernel\) .* Started"'
4

Do you want result in variable "serverCheck" or are you evaluating variable "serverCheck" ?

If you want result in "serverCheck" then use

serverCheck=$(tail -30 /dir1/dir2/dir3/file.log | egrep "JBoss \(MX MicroKernel\) .* Started")
5

No. I need the resulting command stored in the variable. Not the result.

I invoke it with

$serverCheck

in another part of the script

6

Rmove sign "$" from the serverCheck

serverCheck='tail -30 /dir1/dir2/dir3/file.log | egrep "JBoss \(MX MicroKernel\) .* Started"'
7

thats the same code I wrote above. It doesn't work. The wildcard is expanded to include locale files. I use the '$' only when I want to call the resulting command.

---------- Post updated at 08:55 AM ---------- Previous update was at 08:55 AM ----------

my mistake. that's not what i wrote above. But above was a typo. I didn't put a '$'. Instead I've been putting what you wrote. Still doesnt work.

8

You need to evaluate $serverCheck like below

eval $serverCheck

Instead of using only $serverCheck

9

Found away around this problem by using

and changing my logic elsewhere. This solution is not ideal and I'm still curious as to what was going wrong with