Jul 11, 2024 · Some of the most convenient ‘tricks’ on Linux depend on the use of a handful of special characters. This post looks at a number of command operators on Linux and shows …

Oct 3, 2025 · We'll show you which characters are "special" or "meta-" characters, as well as how you can use them functionally and literally. The tilde (~) is shorthand for your home directory. It …

May 2, 2025 · In bash, $0 is a special parameter that holds the name of the script or shell that is currently being executed. It is also known as the “name” or “zeroth argument” of the script. For …

Jul 6, 2024 · What Are the Special Dollar Sign Shell Variables? 1. Overview. The dollar sign ($) plays a crucial role in shell scripting. This ranges from argument handling to process …

Jul 23, 2025 · In this Linux cheat sheet, we will cover all the most important Linux commands, from the basics to the advanced. We will also provide some tips on how to practice and learn …

In simpler terms, it's the exit status of the last command. Cjm's answer is correct, but $? can be used in silly ways in shell scripts, and I'd like to warn against that. A lot of bad shell scripts …

Dec 12, 2014 · on the command line, individually quoted ("$1" "$2" ...). So basically, $# is a number of arguments given when your script was executed. $* is a string containing all …

Apr 4, 2023 · Recently, I covered how you can use the number of arguments in bash that involved the use of the $# variable which is one of the special variables of bash. And in this guide, I will …

Special parameters are denoted by one of the following characters. ($*) Expands to the positional parameters, starting from one. When the expansion is not within double quotes, each …

Sep 14, 2012 · In Bash, there appear to be several variables which hold special, consistently-meaning values. For instance, ./myprogram &; echo $! will return the PID of the process which …