eval 的含义 （copied）

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eval is part of POSIX. Its an interface which can be a shell built-in. Its described in the "POSIX Programmer's Manual": http://www.unix.com/man-page/posix/1posix/eval/ eval - construct command by concatenating arguments It will take an argument and construct a command of it, which will be executed by the shell. This is the example of the manpage: 1) foo=10 x=foo 2) y='$'$x 3) echo $y 4) $foo 5) eval y='$'$x 6) echo $y 7) 10 In the first line you define $foo with the value '10' and $x with the value 'foo'. Now define $y, which consists of the string '$foo'. The dollar sign must be escaped with '$'. To check the result, echo $y. The result will be the string '$foo' Now we repeat the assignment with eval. It will first evaluate $x to the string 'foo'. Now we have the statement y=$foo which will get evaluated to y=10. The result of echo $y is now the value '10'. This is a common function in many languages, e.g. Perl and JavaScript. Have a look at perldoc eval for more examples: http://perldoc.perl.org/functions/eval.html share improve this answer edited Oct 25 '11 at 14:13 answered   Oct 22 '11 at 20:37 echox 5,691 15 34

In shell terminology, eval is a built-in, not a function. In practice, built-ins behave a lot like functions that don't have an in-language definition, but not quite (as becomes apparent if you are twisted enough to define a function called eval).  –    Gilles   Oct 23 '11 at 1:17 thx, fixed that :-)  –    echox   Oct 25 '11 at 14:14 来源：http://unix.stackexchange.com/questions/23111/what-is-the-eval-command-in-bash