Diff b/w $@ and $#

Shell Programming and Scripting
1

Hello,

Pls explain the difference between $# and $@, and how its used in shell scripting .

Thanks in advance

2

In short, RTFM.

Under Special Parameters in man sh

       @      Expands  to  the positional parameters, starting from one.  When
              the  expansion  occurs  within  double  quotes,  each  parameter
              expands to a separate word.  That is, "$@" is equivalent to "$1"
              "$2" ...  When there are no positional parameters, "$@"  and  $@
              expand to nothing (i.e., they are removed).
       #      Expands to the number of positional parameters in decimal.
3

Thanks for the info, but its not clear to me can you explain me via an example......

4

An example to help you understand better.

$# - Will give you the number of arguments passed to the script
$@ - Will list all the arguments passed

/export/home/test/mons/UnixForum>cat test.sh
#!/bin/ksh
print "The number of arguments passed to this shell script is " $#

print "The arguments passed are as follows"
print "$@"

/export/home/test/mons/UnixForum>test.sh hai welcome to unixforum .com
The number of arguments passed to this shell script is  5
The arguments passed are as follows
hai welcome to unixforum .com
5

Thanks for the expalantion ......