Question

This question already has an answer here:

How can I check the exit code of a command substitution in bash if the assignment is to a local variable in a function?
Please see the following examples. The second one is where I want to check the exit code.
Does someone have a good work-around or correct solution for this?

$ function testing { test="$(return 1)"; echo $?; }; testing
1
$ function testing { local test="$(return 1)"; echo $?; }; testing
0
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Solution

If you look at the man file for local (which is actually just the BASH builtins man page), it is treated as its own command, which gives an exit code of 0 upon successfully creating the local variable. So local is overwriting the last-executed error code.

Try this:

function testing { local test; test="$(return 1)"; echo $?; }; testing

EDIT: I went ahead and tried it for you, and it works.

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