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  • This is very very very overcomplicated for shell scripting. Just use a pipeline. You should be able to stuff all of this in a single command; you don't need functions at all. Commented May 10, 2016 at 18:12
  • I cut the relevant part of the script, but I use these functions at several places in the script (I have a 5 or so if-elif-elif ... and they nearly all use these two functions. Commented May 10, 2016 at 21:40
  • Fair enough. You should still check out the Bash guide, particularly the section on case switches. Commented May 10, 2016 at 21:43
  • Also, if you're going to rely heavily on command substitution for passing text back from functions et. al., you definitely need to learn about quoting your variables. Commented May 10, 2016 at 21:44