get the first 5 characters from each line in shell script
If you want to use cut this way, you need to use redirection <<< (a here string) like:
var=$(cut -c-5 <<< "$line")Note the use of var=$(command) expression instead of id= cut -c-5 $line. This is the way to save the command into a variable.
Also, use /bin/bash instead of /bin/sh to have it working.
Full code that is working to me:
#!/bin/bashfilename='sample.txt'while read -r linedo id=$(cut -c-5 <<< "$line") echo $id #code for passing id to other script file as parameterdone < "$filename"