#!/bin/bash for i in *.grb ; do str1= echo $i | awk '{print substr($1,24,2)+0 }' echo $str1 if [ "$str1" = "1" ]; then uid="jan" else uid="not jan" fi echo $uid read pause done When I run the above script it , uid takes a value of not "not jan". However, echo $str1, does produce 1, before if test started. Can u help ? Yacob

The echo $str1 command is not producing the 1 in your output. That command is echoing nothing (null). If you take out that echo, you will see that you still get the 1. The following command: str1= echo $i | awk '{print substr($1,24,2)+0 }' is printing the 1. The first part of that command is assigning a null to str1. Then the echo|awk pipe is printing the 1. Change that command to this: str1=$(echo $i | awk '{print substr($1,24,2)+0 }') Now your str1 variable will be loaded. Another thing to keep in mind is that the = operator is for comparing strings, while the -eq operator is best for comparing numerics. For example, 1 and 01 will not compare equal using the = operator, but would compare equal using the -eq operator.