Questions tagged [quoting]
Strings are typically delimited by quotes, which raises the problem of dealing with strings that include quotes.
1,056
questions
0
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views
how to write function with nested commands [duplicate]
I'm trying to write a find and cd function like so:
findcd () {
cd "$(dirname "$(find '$1' -type '$2' -name '$3')")"
}
to be called like so:
find . f [FILE_NAME]
But it's ...
- 125
0
votes
1
answer
82
views
Run `git commit -m` with single quotes in zsh
I sometimes use characters such as ! and $ in commit messages, they need to be manually escaped, but not if you use single quotes like this git commit -m 'My $message here!'. I tried to write a ...
5
votes
2
answers
572
views
Bash reads quotes inside a variable as text, not quotes? Is "Implicit quoting" a thing in Bash?
I've got a bash script that cleans up the mail queue periodically. For Reasons, we've elected to delete any email to @mms.att.net and other email2SMS gateways that are over 9 hours in the queue and ...
- 1,781
0
votes
1
answer
136
views
Unable to resolve parameter inside json
I'm using a curl command inside a script (edm.ksh) to retrieve some data from an API, it requires a password in a JSON like {"password":"myPassword"}. Now, myPassword is not ...
7
votes
2
answers
847
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Echoing "!" inside a string does some weird things [duplicate]
If I type in this:
echo "Hello, World!"
I don't know the name of it, but it prompts me for the next line. You know the PS2 thing. Or if you type echo \ and press Enter.
Why?
Well I know ...
- 540
0
votes
1
answer
41
views
Using a variable in between ' 's
I have a bash script with a line that was originally this
convert '%d.jpg[1-300]' combined.pdf
Uses convert from Imagemagick to strap a load of sequentially numbered jpgs in to a PDF.
I've written a ...
0
votes
0
answers
31
views
How to escape command line to be able to send it by `ssh` to remote host in all cases?
I am composing command line for ssh with the following (Python) code:
def instrument(self, cmd: str) -> str:
return "ssh -A %s" % (cmd)
and this of course failing in some cases, for ...
- 3,195
0
votes
2
answers
120
views
Why is echo "\*" the same as echo "\\*"
Title.
echo "\*" has the exact same output as echo "\\*", \*. I am using GNU bash 5.2.15.
I expected echo "\\*" to output \*, but I do not know why echo "\*" ...
- 103
0
votes
2
answers
238
views
Choose columns with sort and cut in a csv with a comma delimiter ',' ignoring data on quotes with comma "text,text"
I am parsing a huge csv file with rows and columns with different parameters. However, some fields contain large descriptions within quotes that contain commas. How can I choose columns with sort and ...
- 3
1
vote
3
answers
155
views
Removing directories with spaces in their directory paths
I'm on macOS. I have many directories at paths that looks like this:
./FirstName SecondName/A Multi Word Title/Contents/Index/files
I want to remove ALL the Index directories and their contents. I ...
- 11
0
votes
2
answers
109
views
Show quotes with echo inside bash -c
I am trying to echo I say "Hello, World!" with bash -c. This is (some of) what I have tried:
$ bash -c "echo I say \"Hello, World"'!'"\""
$ bash -c "echo I ...
- 105
7
votes
3
answers
617
views
Is it possible to print a command so that the output can be parsed to create the same command?
The question may sound quite complicated, but in fact it is not! Consider:
% f() { echo "$@"; }
% f a
a
% f cmd -o"value with space"
cmd -ovalue with space
% f cmd -ovalue with ...
- 1,104
3
votes
1
answer
222
views
Problem with single quote in Bash [duplicate]
I have a sh script for initializing dzen2, and I want to use Source Code Pro font to use there. Here's the code...
param="-p -dock -fn 'Source Code Pro-10'"
# the generated_output function ...
- 125
1
vote
1
answer
57
views
Why does enclosing a command in double quotes affect aliases?
I have an alias rm='/bin/rm -i' and I know that if I type "rm" filename in the command line, the alias will be ignored somehow and the normal rm command without the -i flag will be called, ...
1
vote
1
answer
2k
views
How do I quote square brackets in Ansible variable value for regexp parameter?
I use the ansible.builtin.lineinfile module to modify a PHP-FPM pool configuration file. How should I quote the square brackets (annot.: or other special characters) in a value of a variable for the ...
- 13
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votes
2
answers
424
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How to print a double quote in POSIX scripting?
So far, I've been using "\"" to print a double quote:
$ x="abc def"
$ echo "x=\"$x\""
x="abc def"
However, it seems like that behavior is ...
- 2,980
3
votes
1
answer
396
views
Why is "${1-"$var"}" (option 6 down below) not mentioned in POSIX?
The only reference I could find in the spec is this:
It would be desirable to include the statement "The characters from an enclosed "${" to the matching '}' shall not be affected by ...
- 1,973
2
votes
1
answer
313
views
rsync does not exclude specified directory starting with a hash character (#)
I am trying to exclude the #recycle directory with rsync:
$ rsync -Hauv -h -P --exclude '#recycle/' --exclude @eaDir/ --exclude '.DS_Store*' --exclude desktop.ini user1@src_server:/volume2/...
- 1,991
6
votes
1
answer
2k
views
Getting jq error when using variable in command line
I am using jq to get the tag_name index with the script:
curl \
https://api.github.com/repos/checkstyle/checkstyle/releases \
-H "Authorization: token $GITHUB_TOKEN" \
-o /var/tmp/cs-...
2
votes
1
answer
104
views
Any shell where expansions are turned off without escaping or quoting?
Say, with zsh one can prefix a command with noglob to "turn off filename generation (globbing)".
I'm looking for a shell where similar approach can be used to disable not only globbing but ...
- 6,195
7
votes
3
answers
2k
views
How to use jq to return information to the shell, taking whitespace into account?
Given this file:
$ cat fruits.json
[
{ "name": "apple" },
{ "name": "banana\nfofanna" },
{ "name": "my kiwi" }
]
how can one use jq ...
- 704
0
votes
1
answer
39
views
How Can I Interpret Quoted Wildcards
I am writing a shell script and I need to interpret quoted wildcards.
"R Programming*"
I do not want the * asterisk to be taken literally.
I want it to be interpreted as a wildcard.
"R ...
- 291
8
votes
1
answer
3k
views
What are curly quotes and can I use them in my code?
Somehow curly quotes got into my code and I'm getting unexpected behavior
#!/bin/sh
if [ foo = ‘foo’ ]; then
echo yes
else
echo no
fi
I would expect this to echo yes but instead it echoes no.
- 36k
2
votes
1
answer
550
views
How to properly use quotes for a bash function?
I am trying to define the following bash function in my .bashrc file:
function myfind() {
find $1 -not -path venv -not -path .tox -name "$2" | xargs grep -n "$3"
}
which is ...
- 5,624
0
votes
2
answers
5k
views
unexpected EOF while looking for matching `''
I have created a script to export CSV data to mysql table.
#!/bin/bash
cd /data/NEW
for f in User*
do
mysql --user="root" --password="user@123" -e "LOAD DATA LOCAL ...
- 73
3
votes
1
answer
210
views
Recursively renaming apostrophs ' in filenames (Bash)
Need to remove apostrophes from files. I have tried several approaches, also from Stackexchange.
I am on a Synology NAS, so I don't have Python, or Perl and furthermore I have to exclude certain ...
- 307
2
votes
2
answers
115
views
Test fails (correctly) on command line, but succeeds (incorrectly) in script
For the sake of this question, assume that the glob /a/b/c/* produces no matches.
This means that the following test should fail (in other words, it should produce a non-zero $?):
[[ -n /a/b/c/*(#qN) ]...
- 14.8k
2
votes
1
answer
1k
views
pass long html string as argument to bash script (Filename too long)
I am passing an html string as an input to a bash script:
Script.py
def bash(commandStr):
subprocess.Popen(commandStr, shell=True, executable="/bin/bash")
def sendmail(subject, to, ...
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2
votes
2
answers
458
views
Escape variable for zsh's `print -P`
I was looking for a way to escape a variable containing format specifiers and special characters like quotes, backslashes and line breaks so that when passing it to print -P it'll print out literally.
...
- 3,544
2
votes
1
answer
47
views
Why isn't the `else` arm executed in this Bash script (for loop through an array)?
The following code is meant to look for subdirectories in ~/Downloads. I run it with . ./script.sh. It will find them even when the user submits an incomplete name.
#!/usr/bin/bash
echo -e "\...
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0
votes
1
answer
41
views
Why "$(findmnt | grep "\""proc"\"" | head -n 1)" is zero-length? (what is incorrect with escaping double quotes with `"\""` here?)
I'm surprised that:
$ if [ -n "$(findmnt | grep "\""proc"\"" | head -n 1)" ]; then echo 1; else echo 2; fi
2
I've used "\"" before IIRC after ...
- 1,083
0
votes
2
answers
213
views
How do I convert this script into an alias (MacOS, ZSH) [duplicate]
This script works fine when directly typed into the console:
N | find . -type f -iname "*.aac" -exec bash -c 'FILE="$1"; ffmpeg -i "${FILE}" -acodec libmp3lame "${...
- 107
1
vote
2
answers
296
views
Please explain the behavior of these parameter expansions using IFS?
I'm trying to figure out how to use the ${parameter%word} expansion with $@ and $*. It started by trying to make a script to combine pdfs using ghostscript, but I ran into some weird behavior with ...
- 53
0
votes
2
answers
647
views
How to properly parse a quoted arg-list string in a shell script?
Summary
How to convert a single string a "b" 'c d' $'e\nf' into separate arguments, respecting quotes and preserving whitespaces and newlines?
Question
I'm trying to read and process the ...
- 101
1
vote
2
answers
3k
views
Bash: How do I quote shell arguments with spaces inside a variable containing multiple arguments without using an array? [duplicate]
In Bash, is it possible to pass a variable with a properly-quoted list of options to a command and not have it split on whitespace inside quotes? IOW, this script:
MYCONFIG="--hi FOO=bar 'X=ABC ...
- 127
0
votes
0
answers
25
views
Quoting inside [[ ]] in bash shell [duplicate]
Inside [[ ]] I do not need to quote variables right?
Rather than
if [[ "$flrm" == *"org"* || "$flrm" == "all" ]]; then
printf '%s\n' "Delete: $fl"
...
- 1,183
1
vote
3
answers
2k
views
How to use argument in single quotes
I have a file, which contains ids:
123abc
456dbc
I want to pass them in to a command while I iterate over the the file.
Currently, my command works like this: part_of_command '{"id":{"...
- 11
0
votes
2
answers
844
views
Sed can not replace when string contains double quotes
Output error from the execution of sed command:
sed: -e expression #1, char 14: unterminated `s' command
command file that I am trying to execute:
#!/bin/sh
old_version='\"version\": \&...
1
vote
2
answers
904
views
Array Declaration: Double Quotes & Parentheses
Perhaps this is a stupid question but two hours on Google hasn't turned up anything on point.
Simply, does a difference exist in Bash between:
X="
a
b
c
"
and
X=(
a
b
c
)
The former ...
- 281
0
votes
1
answer
1k
views
Escaping "all prerequisites" variables in Makefile
Let's assume we have a couple of files whose names need to be quoted when used in a shell:
echo A > 'a.$A'
echo B > 'b.$B'
And there is a Makefile with a rule that depends on these files:
all: ...
- 103
0
votes
1
answer
120
views
Problem with command for memory stress - Unexpected end of string
I have a problem with this command in Python.
stress-ng --vm-bytes $(awk '/MemAvailable/{printf "%d\n", $2 * 0.95;}' < /proc/meminfo)k --vm-keep -m 1
I need double quotation marks at the ...
- 1
4
votes
2
answers
804
views
Bash's read builtin errors on a string-based timeout option specification but not an array-based one. Why?
In reading through the source to fff to learn more about Bash programming, I saw a timeout option passed to read as an array here:
read "${read_flags[@]}" -srn 1 && key "$REPLY&...
- 143
2
votes
2
answers
1k
views
Removing single quotes from double-quoted variable element in array and run a command [duplicate]
I have a script where I dinamically change the arguments which must be passed to a command (mkvpropedit in this case). Consider the example script below:
#!/bin/bash
LANG_NAME="eng lish"
...
- 177
0
votes
1
answer
221
views
case-substring function and quoting
i use a simple function in a script in order to ckeck if a string contains a particular substring:
#!/bin/bash
#
subs() {
case $2 in
*$1*)
return 0 ;;
*)
...
- 3
3
votes
2
answers
209
views
Why does the command echo `echo \\\\\\\z` in bash script print \\z instead of \\\z?
The command
echo `echo \\\\\\\z`
is from this book , I don’t understand why it prints
\\z
when it get executed via the bash script.
I think it should print
\\\z
- 31
2
votes
1
answer
92
views
Does + need to be escaped in find commands?
I have the following code in bash and I wonder on whether I can get rid of \+ and simply use +
find "$fdir" \
-type f -name "*.org" -o -name ...
- 371
2
votes
1
answer
697
views
issues with $ symbol while reading from positional parameters in unix shellscript
I have written the following script:
#!/bin/bash
TEST=$1
TEST_1=$2
if [[ "$TEST" == e ]];then
echo $TEST_1
else
echo "Input is not e"
fi
Now if I will run:
sh test.sh e NS3#$xX$...
- 75
2
votes
2
answers
925
views
Unzip a .zip which includes directories with spaces in Name
I have a problem with unzipping my transfered .zip file.
Firstly, I zipped a owncloud data directory with the encryption parameter. Then I transfered it to my new Server und would like to unzip it ...
- 23
1
vote
2
answers
719
views
How to quote exclamation marks in file names in a tcsh shell script with find and awk?
I have a script that searches for space characters ' ', exclamation marks '!' and dollar signs '$' in filenames and replaces each with an underscore '_'. However, it does not handle file names with ...
- 8,546
3
votes
1
answer
4k
views
Grep pattern that has double quotes and variable substitution surrounded by single quotes
So, Let's say I have the following pattern:
Thisisatest="1"
in a file called file.
And I want to match the exact string above but for whatever reason, I choose to loop over some numbers ...
- 2,190