[clug] Amusing little /bin/sh question..

[Andrew Janke]

Hi all,

Just a quick one that has be somewhat bemused..

If I have one shell script (a.sh) as such:

----
#! /bin/sh

set -e
set -o nounset

somevar="a-value"

<lots of other things with $somevar>
----

How can I get what the value of somevar in another script, for example
I can do this on the C/L:

  mavis:dir$ set -n && a.sh && echo $somevar

Things will sort of work but the question is how to do this within
another shell script as such (b.sh)

---
#! /bin/sh

set -e
set -o nounset

thevalueIwant=`something magic with a.sh`

---

Of course I could resort to dirty tricks such as this:

   thevalueIwant=`grep somevar a.sh | head -1 | cut -f2 -d\=`

But then I am relying on myself not writing a comment about somevar
and other things..  Of course I could do this....

   thevalueIwant=`grep -v \# a.sh | grep somevar | head -1 | cut -f2 -d\=`

but now we are getting really ugly.

Just wanted to know if anyone knows a "nice" way to do this.


ta


a

PS: answers of converting it to perl/python/ruby/etc are not
considered answers! :)


-- 
Andrew Janke   (a.janke at gmail.com || http://a.janke.googlepages.com/)
Canberra->Australia    +61 (402) 700 883