What are the differences in the way to get the value of a single environment variable?

Question

I know the typical way is echo "$PATH", for example. But echo $PATH also works. Also, you don't need the echo command even, you can just type $PATH, and the value of path will be outputted to the screen.

What is the difference in these, and is there any preference for a particular command and why?

"you can just type $PATH, and the value of path will be outputted to the screen."? Usually it comes in the form of an error message, no? What shell are you using and what's the actual output you get? What do you think that actually does? What if the you had e.g. var=ls and then ran just $var? — ilkkachu, Jul 15 '23 at 17:50
as for the double quotes, see the mandatory FAQs: When is double-quoting necessary? and Why does my shell script choke on whitespace or other special characters? and https://mywiki.wooledge.org/WordSplitting — ilkkachu, Jul 15 '23 at 17:51
In Bash, also declare -p PATH. There is no distinction between printing normal user variables and environment variables. — Paul_Pedant, Jul 15 '23 at 22:34

score -1 · Answer 1 · answered Jul 15 '23 at 17:53

-1

With quotation marks around the variable, you prevent globbing and word splitting see shell check

answered Jul 15 '23 at 17:53

Grigorios

163

What are the differences in the way to get the value of a single environment variable?

1 Answers1