how to replace spaces in a string with '\ ' in bash

Question

I'm writing a bash script that prints the contents of a file called website (using cat) that is inside a folder with a space in it's name, for example folder 1. but I can't make bash get the path correct, it always uses only the first word in the folder name, so cat folder/website instead of cat folder 1/website. so I want to replace the space with \ . I tried using sed and tr, but they didn't work.

here is my code:

function get-website() {
    DIR="$1"
    website="$(cat "main/apps/$DIR/website")"
}

most of what I tried is here: Replace character X with character Y in a string with bash

thanks in advance!

Answer 1

You have to pass the function directory name quoted.

$ type foo
foo is a function
foo () 
{ 
    dir="${1}";
    cat "${dir}/test"
}
$ foo "folder 1"
foobar
$ foo folder 1
cat: folder/test: No such file or directory