On Wed, Nov 17, 2021 at 06:45:05PM +0000, João Almeida Santos wrote:
> bash-5.1$ cat << $PATH
That's not how a here-document is intended to be used. A here-document
lets you drop a blob of text directly into your script and use that as
standard input for some command, without needing to store the text in a
separate file.
Here's an example of how it's often used:
usage() {
cat << 'EOF'
usage: myprogram [-abcxyz] [-f inputfile]
Description of options:
-a all the things
-b make it bad
...
EOF
}
Using the contents of a variable as the sentinel to mark the end of
the here-document is not a good idea, and using $PATH specifically is
a VERY bad idea.
It kinds looks like you actually wanted a here-string, not a here-document,
IFS=: read -ra paths <<< "$PATH"
Was that what you were trying to do? To use the content of PATH as your
input? That's a here-string and uses the <<< operator, not <<.
