Functions and local variables

When we are in a function, we have a form of scope and may not always want to poke at the global variables, as all variables are by default global in Bash. With the keyword local we can create local variables that live solely within their scope.

#Local variables

Let us look at an example:

#!/usr/bin/env bash
#
# An example script on local variables

# A global variable
total=42

function count {
    # create a local variable
    local total
    for value in "$@"
    do
        (( total+=value ))
    done

    echo "$total"
}

echo "$total" # 42
count 1 2 3   # 6

Now we are not calling on the global $ total when using the function, we are using the local variable.

#Revision history