shell script query

Anonymous Monk has asked for the wisdom of the Perl Monks concerning the following question:

Does anyone know what the following means in a shell script?

export VAR=${1:9:8}
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Re: shell script query by rovf (Priest) on May 31, 2011 at 08:25 UTC
Sorry, mate, wrong forum. This is for Perl programming. By the way, if you ask in a forum about shell scripting, I strongly suggest that you also mention, which shell you are using. Having said this, your command syntax is likely bash or zsh or ksh, and probably taking a substring. If it is bash, grep the man page for the chapter "Parameter Expansion". -- Ronald Fischer <ynnor@mm.st>	[reply] [d/l]
Re: shell script query by ig (Vicar) on May 31, 2011 at 08:44 UTC
If your shell is bash it is a sub-string of ${1}, at offset 9 and length 8, which you can find in bash - see Parameter Expansion.	[reply]
Re^2: shell script query by cdarke (Prior) on May 31, 2011 at 12:55 UTC
Also applies to Korn shell 93 (not 88).	[reply]
Re: shell script query by jimmy.tty (Scribe) on May 31, 2011 at 14:12 UTC
equivalent to the "substring" in several programming languages; in perl, uses substr().	[reply]