Reusing output from last command in Bash

Question

Is the output of a Bash command stored in any register? E.g. something similar to $? capturing the output instead of the exit status.

I could assign the

Answer 1

Not sure exactly what you're needing this for, so this answer may not be relevant. You can always save the output of a command: netstat >> output.txt, but I don't think that's what you're looking for.

There are of course programming options though; you could simply get a program to read the text file above after that command is run and associate it with a variable, and in Ruby, my language of choice, you can create a variable out of command output using 'backticks':

output = `ls`                       #(this is a comment) create variable out of command

if output.include? "Downloads"      #if statement to see if command includes 'Downloads' folder
print "there appears to be a folder named downloads in this directory."
else
print "there is no directory called downloads in this file."
end

Stick this in a .rb file and run it: ruby file.rb and it will create a variable out of the command and allow you to manipulate it.