newbie here. i am writing a bash script and when i use wc -l filename to get a line count it returns the line count and the file name. i would like to get the line count only(not the filename) and store it in a variable. also i need to get the process id of the script and store that in a variable too. any help is greatly appreciated. thank you

sorry wrong forum. trying to figure out how to delete

We don't do homework here, but I'll give you a tip.
There's pipe or redirect as the first set of options,
and e.g. tools like cut or awk as a more brute-force
approach to the problem (removing the excess output).

Forum is fine ;}

Try
man bash
/\$\$



Cheers,
Tink

Welcome to LQ---and thanks for acknowledging homework. You'll get some flak regardless, but your approach has the best chance of getting help.

After the wc command, you can use "cut" to select a specific field. "man cut" for details.

For process ID, try this:
ps -e|grep scriptname

Then use cut to get just the process ID

To put command outputs into variables, there are two forms:
var=`command` (those are backtics, not single quotes)
var=$(command)

to augment whatever text you are using, go to http://tldp.org and get "Bash Guide for Beginners"

thank you very much

There also is a special variable for this. Simpler, cleaner and faster.

There's also pgrep