Q:

Differences in later versions of bash

In an article I was reading recently, published originally in 1996, the following code is quoted for a way in which to evaluate whether the directory $1 is stored in is writable:
    if [ ! -w `dirname $1` ]
    then
        echo $0: I will not be able to delete $1 for you.
        exit 1
    fi

'Learning the Bash Shell' O'Reilly - mentions that the use of grave accents (`) is now archaic. If this is the case, what would now be the standard way of performing this task?
Many thanks,
hcaw

A:

To do so, now we use:
if [ ! -w $(dirname $1) ]
then
    echo $0: I will not be able to delete $1 for you.
    exit 1
fi

that is,
` ` 

syntax has been replaced by
$( )

