Variables in Bash

In many programming languages, we use to create a variable, which must start with either letter, or underscore, but you cannot start a variable with numbers, or any special characters.

Create a variable key=value (with or without quotes) but if you have spaces in your value then you must wrap the variable’s value in single or double quotes.

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fname="Yafiz"
fname='Yafiz'
fname=Yafiz

# this will give you an error
fname=Yafiz Abraham

# correct way to use spaces value with single or double quotes
fname='Yafiz Abraham'
fname="Yafiz Abraham"

This is how you can call your variables.

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echo $fname
echo "$fname"
echo ${fname}

But calling a variable within single quotes will never work because bash or CLI treats this as a simple text.

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echo '$fname'

To set the default value or error message, run the following commands.

• :- will give you default value only if my_var is empty.
• :? will show you an error message only if my_var is empty.

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my_var='' # empty variable
echo ${my_var:-'my default value'}
echo ${my_var:?message}