0

I tryied using JAVA_OPTS=-Xms1024m -Xmx1024m ... in a script file. It shows error like "-Xmx1024m: command not found".

After quoting the assignment in double or single quotes, the error disappear.

And I found that the error is caused by the first dash sign. Because all assignments like "a=-bb xx yy ..." will raise the same error: it tried to run the xx as a program. It seems that shell recognize the second word as a command if the first word begins with a dash sign as long as there's no quotes in the assignment expression.

So my question is: what does assignment expression begins with dash sign mean in shell? I'm using bash as default.

3
  • Sorry, you don't understand at all. The dash has nothing to do with it, it's the embedded spaces that delimit the assgnment and make the rest of the line a command. VAR=foo bar will assign "foo" to the variable VAR and then run the command bar with that (all in a subprocess, so the variable does not affect the main shell).
    – MAP
    Jan 17, 2017 at 2:38
  • @efan when you found that the error is because of the dash, did you try to falsify it by testing a=bb xx yy?
    – muru
    Jan 17, 2017 at 4:18
  • @muru Yes, I understand now, thanks for your comment.
    – efan
    Jan 17, 2017 at 6:32

1 Answer 1

1

First of all, you really should be quoting your variables:

JAVA_OPTS="-Xms1024m -Xmx1024m"

Because the variable was unquoted,in your original command only JAVA_OPTS=-Xms1024m was interpreted as variable assignment,and -Xmx1024m as a command name. This is often refereed to as setting up environment variable for command. For instance,

LC_ALL=C  date +%s

would modify date's environment with setting LC_ALL=C ( that is running date with english locale, even if you have something else set). Note the difference here - LC_ALL=C doesn't have spaces, so word splitting doesn't occur, which is what's happening in case of JAVA_OPTS=-Xms1024m -Xmx1024m

Second, the dash signifies short style of options. There's also long style, for instance bash --posix or ls --format=long. Why dash ? Historical convention. It should be noted that POSIX standard requires only short version of the command-line arguments.

You must log in to answer this question.

Not the answer you're looking for? Browse other questions tagged .