Linux Positional Parameters

Linux shell provides a set of variables called positional parameters that contain the individual words on the command line.

Linux Positional Parameters

Variable	Meaning
$0	Filename of script
$1 - $9	Positional parameter #1 - #9
${10}	Positional parameter #10
$#	Number of positional parameters
${#*}	Number of positional parameters
${#@}	Number of positional parameters
$?	Return value
$$	Process ID (PID) of script
$!	Process ID (PID) of last job run in background
$*	Expands into the list of positional parameters, starting with 1.
$@	Expands into the list of positional parameters, starting with 1.
"$*"	Expands into a doublequoted string containing all the positional parameters, each separated by the first character of the IFS shell variable (by default a space character)
"$@"	Expands each positional parameter into a separate word surrounded by double quotes.

#!/bin/bash

#Role:    Linux Positional Parameters
#Author:  Flasle <valinv.com@gmail.com>
#Created: 2017.02.27

printParams () 
{
	echo "\$1 = $1"
	echo "\$2 = $2"
	echo "\$3 = $3"
	echo "\$4 = $4"
	echo "\$9 = $9"
	echo "\${10} = ${10}"
}
passParams () 
{
	echo -e "Number of positional parameters: $# \r\n"
	echo -e "Number of positional parameters with \${#*}: ${#*} \r\n"
	echo -e "Number of positional parameters with \${#@}: ${#@} \r\n"

	echo -e "\r\n" '$* --------------'; printParams $*
	echo -e "\r\n" '$@ --------------'; printParams $@

	echo -e "\r\n" '"$*" ------------'; printParams "$*"
	echo -e "\r\n" '"$@" ------------'; printParams "$@"
}

echo -e "\r\nCurrent filename of script: $0 \r\n"

echo -e "PID of script: $$ \r\n"

echo -e "PID of last job run in background: $! \r\n"

passParams "Hello" "everybody" "Welcome to www.valinv.com" 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11

Output:


Current filename of script: ./valinv_www_lsp.sh 

PID of script: 21928 

PID of last job run in background:  

Number of positional parameters: 11 

Number of positional parameters with ${#*}: 11 

Number of positional parameters with ${#@}: 11

 $* --------------
$1 = Hello
$2 = everybody
$3 = Welcome
$4 = to
$9 = 7
${10} = 8

 $@ --------------
$1 = Hello
$2 = everybody
$3 = Welcome
$4 = to
$9 = 7
${10} = 8

 "$*" ------------
$1 = Hello everybody Welcome to www.valinv.com 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11
$2 = 
$3 = 
$4 = 
$9 = 
${10} = 

 "$@" ------------
$1 = Hello
$2 = everybody
$3 = Welcome to www.valinv.com
$4 = 4
$9 = 9
${10} = 10