Skip to content
Vidar Holen edited this page Aug 17, 2021 · 1 revision

Parameter expansion can't be applied to command substitutions. Use temporary variables.

Problematic code:

echo "Building ${$(git rev-parse --show-toplevel)##*/}"

Correct code:

tmp=$(git rev-parse --show-toplevel)
echo "Building ${tmp##*/}"

Rationale:

ShellCheck found a parameter expansion that begins with a command substitution, such as $(..) or `..`. This is not valid. Parameter expansion only works on variables (normal or special).

In the example, the user hoped to apply the construct ${var##*/}, stripping the path, to the current git root directory as output by git rev-parse --show-toplevel. Since parameter expansion only works on variable, the command substitution must be assigned to a variable first like in the correct example.

If the goal was instead to dynamically generate a variable name to expand, see SC2082.

Exceptions:

None

Related resources:

  • Help by adding links to BashFAQ, StackOverflow, man pages, POSIX, etc!

ShellCheck

Each individual ShellCheck warning has its own wiki page like S001. Use GitHub "Pages" feature above to find a specific one, or see Checks.

Clone this wiki locally