Deeper into Function Complexities with Shell Scripting – Part VII

 My previous article on “Understanding and Writing functions in Shell Scripts” might have given you a basic idea on how to write functions under shell scripts. Now it is time to get deeper into functional features like the usage of local variables and recursion.

Function Complexities with Shell Scripting

Local Variables

What makes a variable local? It depends on that particular block where the variable is declared. A variable declared as local will be accessible from that block of code where it appears i.e. its scope is local. In order to explain this thing let’s look into one example below.

#!/bin/bash 

func( ) { 
	local i=10 
	j=20 
	echo "i from func = $i" 
	echo "j from func = $j" 
} 

echo "i outside func = $i" 
echo "j outside func = $j" 

func 

echo "i outside func = $i" 
echo "j outside func = $j" 

exit 0

On executing the above script the output will be.

i outside func = 
j outside func = 
i from func = 10 
j from func = 20 
i outside func =