Return a value through a named output variable.
Bash Scripts: A Bash nameref can update a caller-supplied variable without command substitution.
set -euo pipefail
set_value() { local -n output=$1; output=ready; }
result=""
set_value result
printf "%s\n" "$result"Expected output EXAMPLE
ready
Details
Requires Bash 4 or later. Save as snippet.sh and run bash snippet.sh in an empty working directory. A Bash nameref can update a caller-supplied variable without command substitution.
Requires Bash 4.3 or later. Pass a trusted variable name and avoid naming it output in this function.
Tested on Ubuntu 24.04.5 LTS · · GNU bash, version 5.2.21(1)-release (x86_64-pc-linux-gnu) · bash 5.2.21-2ubuntu4; coreutils 9.4-3ubuntu6.3
Test inputs, results and environment
The exact published code ran in a dedicated Linux test container with prepared inputs. Snippet process uid 65534 with a read-only root filesystem and temporary working files. Networking disabled. Fixtures and output records are isolated from the application database. Testing covers this example and its stated checks, not every input, operating system, or runtime version. The Linux container shares its host's kernel; this is not a native Windows test.
- Architecture / host kernel
- x86_64 / 6.18.54.1-microsoft-standard-WSL2
- Snippet identity / locale
- uid=65534, gid=65534 (unprivileged process) / C.UTF-8
- Interpreter invocation
bash -euo pipefail -c <published code>- Container image ID
sha256:ec91410a8f6ec3e985830b5e3a0560306d36f8c1c5ccd91a6699abe707123fa3- Code SHA-256
7b813e30b58e8f4a732f7f0feb07fe2042acc13e1452f019533154d5ee88bfc3- Dependencies
- bash 5.2.21-2ubuntu4; coreutils 9.4-3ubuntu6.3
Test input setup
These are the prepared inputs used by the test harness. See Details above for the prerequisites and how to run this example.
# No input files required.
Observed standard output
ready
Exit code: 0. Standard error: empty. Validation: Exact stdout comparison. System-dependent values above are one recorded run.