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up vote 2 down vote favorite

I'm trying to use the syntax:

A=${B:-C}

where A is the variable, B is the value I'm trying to assign, C is the default value if B is null.

Now I want to replace B with the command nc -l 443, so if nc receive a string through port 443, it is assigned to the variable A, else A is set to default value. I wrote the command as:

A=${`nc -l 443`:-NULL}

But I get an error:

-bash: A=${`nc -l 443`:-NULL}: bad substitution

How can I achieve this?

share|improve this question
    
syntax "A=${B:-C}" is variable expansion in bash but function. Firstly you should assign result of function to variable, than use variable expansion – Costas yesterday
up vote 4 down vote

Nested substitution is not available in any modern Bourne-like shells except zsh:

$ print -rl -- ${$(echo):-C}
C
$ print -rl -- ${$(echo 1):-C}
1

In other shells:

A=$(nc -l 443)
A=${A:-C}
share|improve this answer
up vote 2 down vote

In Bash, the line

A=${B:-C}

will assign the value of the variable B to the variable A if B is set and not null. Otherwise the variable A will get the value C, i.e. the string containing the single character C.

What you might want to do:

B=$( some command )
A=${B:-C}

After this, $A will either be the output from some command, if it's not null, or the character C, if it is.

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