Unable to store ascii value in a variable

Question

I am trying to convert hex to decimal to ascii and store it in a variable. I am using the following code.

HEX=30
DEC=`printf "%d\n" 0x${HEX}`
echo "$DEC"
ASC=`printf \\$(printf '%03o' $DEC)`
echo "$ASC"

I am getting the following error syntax error :

`(' unexpected

I am using Solaris 10, and ksh. I do not want to use a function for ascii and call it to store the value. I want to be able to do it without using a function.

Answer 1

You're mistakenly escaping the $ twice, leading printf to see printf \$( ... instead of (what I assume you want) of substituting the inside printf results. To that end, you could simplify that whole statement to: ASC=$(printf '%03o' $DEC)

Answer 2

Thanks Jeff Schaller for correcting my syntax error. I found a solution to my problem, this is working in Solaris 10.

script:

#!/bin/ksh
HEX=30
DEC=`printf "%d\n" 0x${HEX}`  ##Converted Hex to decimal
echo "$DEC"
OCT=$(printf '%o' $DEC)   ##Converted decimal to octal
echo "$OCT"
ASCI=$(printf \\$OCT)  ##Finally converted OCTAL to ASCII.
echo "$ASCI"

output:

48
60
0

Apparently, we have to convert decimal to octal before printing out to ASCII.