I want to store the output of a bash command to a string in a bash script. The part that matters is as follows:

#!/bin/bash
player_status="$(playerctl -l)"

The output of the command when run on terminal (not with the bash script) is "No players were found". When I run the bash script (note that there is not an echo) it outputs "No players were found" to the terminal. I want it instead to not put it in the terminal but instead the variable.

2 Answers

It sounds like your command is producing output to standard error rather than standard output. Try using the 2>&1 modifier on your shell command.

#!/bin/bash
player_status="$(playerctl -l 2>&1)"

The modifier means "send standard error to standard output."

Please try to use backquotes ( ` ), backquotes execute the command and return the output in the same shell LEVEL

player_status=`playerctl -l`

instead of

player_status="$(playerctl -l)" # Here the command is executed in child process thus its output is not available in this script from which CHILD process was executed

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