I do a echo $1, it prints out what is the default login shell used.
But for echo $2 onwards, all I get is a newline. Why is that?
3 Answers
$1 (or $2,$3 ...) is supposed to be the arguments given to some script.
Here's an example script:
#!/bin/bash
echo "\$1 is now $1"
echo "\$2 is now $2"
echo "\$3 is now $3"And the example output
jaba@lappy:/tmp$ ./example.sh
$1 is now
$2 is now
$3 is now
jaba@lappy:/tmp$ ./example.sh 1 2 3
$1 is now 1
$2 is now 2
$3 is now 3$1 is the argument passed for shell script.
Suppose, you run
./myscript.sh hello 123 then
$1 will be hello
$2 will be 123
In your case $1 prints default login shell used because this argument was passed to script that runs your login shell. But if you'll write and run your own script in current session, $1, $2, ... will be parameters that you send to your script.
