How to replace a command with the result of another in linux?

I want to create a command which uses the result of another like this:

JNLP_FILE='find . -name viewerApplet.jnlp'
cp ${JAR_FILE} ../../sign-jar/$PROFILE/

But I don't know how to execute the find command to use for the 'cp' command.

Any help?

code-gijoe

Posted 2012-03-07T22:49:03.830

Reputation: 221

Answers

You can use a dollar sign followed by the command in parentheses [$(<command>)] to have the output of that command fed directly into the command line:

cp $(find . -name viewerApplet.jnlp) ../../sign-jar/$PROFILE/

Alternatively, you can use backticks (`):

cp `find . -name viewerApplet.jnlp` ../../sign-jar/$PROFILE/

bwDraco

Posted 2012-03-07T22:49:03.830

Reputation: 41 701

1The $(command substitution) syntax is generally preferred over backticks these days. – glenn jackman – 2012-03-08T01:40:41.767

@glennjackman, I've edited my post to reflect your comment. – bwDraco – 2012-03-08T22:56:06.173

find . -name viewerApplet.jnlp -exec cp {} ../../sign-jar/$PROFILE/ \;

-exec lets you feed the results of find to another command. {} stands in for the name of the file found. Note that if find has more than one result it will copy them all into the specified directory (presumably you have only 1 file called viewerApplet.jnlp, but exec also works for things like find . -name *.java -exec cp {} backups/ \;)

Sean

Posted 2012-03-07T22:49:03.830

Reputation: 1 546