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Terminology (lemmy.nz)
submitted 6 days ago by cannedtuna@lemmy.world to c/programmer_humor@programming.dev
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[-] oozynozh@sh.itjust.works 2 points 5 days ago

bash uses $ character to indicate variables. for example, you can see your current environment variables with the env command. then to see a specific variable echo $var to print its value.

scripts may call variables for a variety of reasons. one common case would be collecting information from the environment it's running under to determine whether it's compatible.

[-] wonderingwanderer@sopuli.xyz 1 points 5 days ago

Oh. Oh yeah, I have done that. Like for adding the date to a file name when I dump a terminal output to into a text file, or adding hit counts to a custom notification after running a scan on a cron job.

I just use the character for that. It's fine, can't win them all, but it's better than having it at the beginning of every command line for seemingly no reason

this post was submitted on 30 Aug 2026
861 points (98.3% liked)

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