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I want to extract the host name of a machine and omit whatever exists after .. For example, the command hostname says compute-0-0.local. So, I used `cut command like this

# hostname | cut -f 1 -d "."
compute-0-0

Now, I want to put that output in a variable. The following command doesn't work.

# HT=`hostname` | cut -f 1 -d "."
# echo $HT
compute-0-0.local

Any way to fix that?

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  • It is because the backticks are not around the whole command. Also prefer $() over backticks. see @clk 's answer for details on how.
    – ctrl-alt-delor
    Jul 18, 2016 at 17:35
  • Does "${HOSTNAME%%.*}" work for you? HOSTNAME is not in POSIX though
    – iruvar
    Jul 18, 2016 at 18:00
  • 1
    assuming Linux (or other OS with a reasonably modern and useful hostname command), you could just use hostname -s aka hostname --short.
    – cas
    Jul 19, 2016 at 11:57

1 Answer 1

Reset to default
4

Use this instead, noting that your entire command must be enclosed within the backticks:

HT=`hostname | cut -f 1 -d "."`

You could potentially use $() as well:

HT=$(hostname | cut -f 1 -d ".")

This syntax for command substitution is not supported in certain shells, though, including the original Bourne shell, csh and tcsh. For those shells you will need to use backticks.

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