Questions tagged [quoting]
Strings are typically delimited by quotes, which raises the problem of dealing with strings that include quotes.
1,035
questions
8
votes
1
answer
1k
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.
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2
votes
1
answer
166
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 ...
- 5,234
0
votes
2
answers
352
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 ...
- 51
3
votes
1
answer
75
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 ...
- 185
2
votes
2
answers
36
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 $?):
[[ -n /a/b/c/*(#qN) ]...
- 13k
1
vote
1
answer
229
views
pass long html string as argument to bash script (Filename too long)
I am passing an html string as an input to a bash script:
Script.py
def bash(commandStr):
subprocess.Popen(commandStr, shell=True, executable="/bin/bash")
def sendmail(subject, to, ...
- 113
2
votes
2
answers
60
views
Escape variable for zsh's `print -P`
I was looking for a way to escape a variable containing format specifiers and special characters like quotes, backslashes and line breaks so that when passing it to print -P it'll print out literally.
...
- 3,362
2
votes
1
answer
28
views
Why isn't the `else` arm executed in this Bash script (for loop through an array)?
The following code is meant to look for subdirectories in ~/Downloads. I run it with . ./script.sh. It will find them even when the user submits an incomplete name.
#!/usr/bin/bash
echo -e "\...
- 23
0
votes
1
answer
27
views
Why "$(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 ...
- 783
0
votes
2
answers
37
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 "${...
- 117
1
vote
2
answers
248
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
-1
votes
2
answers
129
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' $'e\nf' into separate arguments, respecting quotes and preserving whitespaces and newlines?
Question
I'm trying to read and process the ...
- 99
0
votes
3
answers
428
views
Bash: How do I quote shell arguments with spaces inside a variable containing multiple arguments without using an array? [duplicate]
In Bash, is it possible to pass a variable with a properly-quoted list of options to a command and not have it split on whitespace inside quotes? IOW, this script:
MYCONFIG="--hi FOO=bar 'X=ABC ...
- 117
0
votes
0
answers
25
views
Quoting inside [[ ]] in bash shell [duplicate]
Inside [[ ]] I do not need to quote variables right?
Rather than
if [[ "$flrm" == *"org"* || "$flrm" == "all" ]]; then
printf '%s\n' "Delete: $fl"
...
- 53
1
vote
3
answers
46
views
How to use argument in single quotes
I have a file, which contains ids:
123abc
456dbc
I want to pass them in to a command while I iterate over the the file.
Currently, my command works like this: part_of_command '{"id":{"...
- 11
0
votes
2
answers
395
views
Sed can not replace when string contains double quotes
Output error from the execution of sed command:
sed: -e expression #1, char 14: unterminated `s' command
command file that I am trying to execute:
#!/bin/sh
old_version='\"version\": \&...
1
vote
2
answers
177
views
Array Declaration: Double Quotes & Parentheses
Perhaps this is a stupid question but two hours on Google hasn't turned up anything on point.
Simply, does a difference exist in Bash between:
X="
a
b
c
"
and
X=(
a
b
c
)
The former ...
- 155
0
votes
1
answer
265
views
Escaping "all prerequisites" variables in Makefile
Let's assume we have a couple of files whose names need to be quoted when used in a shell:
echo A > 'a.$A'
echo B > 'b.$B'
And there is a Makefile with a rule that depends on these files:
all: ...
- 103
0
votes
1
answer
65
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", $2 * 0.95;}' < /proc/meminfo)k --vm-keep -m 1
I need double quotation marks at the ...
- 1
4
votes
2
answers
425
views
Bash's read builtin errors on a string-based timeout option specification but not an array-based one. Why?
In reading through the source to fff to learn more about Bash programming, I saw a timeout option passed to read as an array here:
read "${read_flags[@]}" -srn 1 && key "$REPLY&...
- 143
2
votes
2
answers
410
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
42
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
*$1*)
return 0 ;;
*)
...
- 3
3
votes
2
answers
143
views
Why does the command echo `echo \\\\\\\z` in bash script print \\z instead of \\\z?
The command
echo `echo \\\\\\\z`
is from this book , I don’t understand why it prints
\\z
when it get executed via the bash script.
I think it should print
\\\z
- 31
2
votes
1
answer
69
views
Does + need to be escaped in find commands?
I have the following code in bash and I wonder on whether I can get rid of \+ and simply use +
find "$fdir" \
-type f -name "*.org" -o -name ...
- 319
2
votes
1
answer
383
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$...
- 61
2
votes
2
answers
369
views
Unzip a .zip which includes directories with spaces in Name
I have a problem with unzipping my transfered .zip file.
Firstly, I zipped a owncloud data directory with the encryption parameter. Then I transfered it to my new Server und would like to unzip it ...
- 23
1
vote
2
answers
293
views
How to quote exclamation marks in file names in a tcsh shell script with find and awk?
I have a script that searches for space characters ' ', exclamation marks '!' and dollar signs '$' in filenames and replaces each with an underscore '_'. However, it does not handle file names with ...
- 7,647
3
votes
1
answer
576
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 ...
- 1,837
5
votes
3
answers
584
views
How to recursively set directory permissions with a find that lacks -exec?
My Qnap NAS is cursed with a find command that lacks the -exec parameter, so I have to pipe to something. The shell is: GNU bash, version 3.2.57(2)-release-(arm-unknown-linux-gnueabihf)
I'm trying to ...
1
vote
1
answer
201
views
How to insert ESC control characters in a file in FreeBSD?
I want to enclose Fortran comments with two escape commands (ESC+E and ESC+F).
This implies detecting the comment that begins with ! until end of line, and prefixing it with ESC+E and suffixing it ...
- 569
5
votes
3
answers
976
views
How to match a literal string containing an unclosed quote with ripgrep?
I have a file that contains the some python code. There is a line that contains the following(including the quotes)
'hello "value"'
I want to search 'hello "value" in the file. ...
- 211
0
votes
1
answer
115
views
BASH ANSI-C Quoting - what is the Escape character \E
According to the GNU Bash manual (section 3.1.2.4 ANSI-C Quoting) $'\E' should expand to "an escape character (not ANSI C)". What is this escape character? Is it the character equivalent to ...
- 1,441
0
votes
2
answers
38
views
Pass qouted filename with spaces in a bash variable [duplicate]
In a bash shell, consider this:
$ x="-name 'foo bar'"
$ find $x
find: paths must precede expression: `bar''
$ find -name 'foo bar'
./foo bar
What can I put in $x to make find $x behave like ...
- 1
0
votes
0
answers
17
views
ASH scripting quotes in backticks works with echo but not with actual execution [duplicate]
I am creating a script for my router (running busybox).
In my script I generate a command in a variable like nvram set option='value with spaces' but when it is executed it complains that arguments ...
- 101
1
vote
1
answer
777
views
Using single quotes inside input of heredocs
I need some help debugging my tcsh script. It uses heredocs. The code:
<pre_setup> <<EOF1
<setup> <<EOF2
<command>
exit 0
EOF2
exit 0
EOF1
The <pre_setup> is ...
- 83
0
votes
1
answer
172
views
What exactly these tr commnads do?
I am rewriting some commands that were run using WSL on a Windows machine and need to accomplish the same thing in Python. I am having a really hard time figuring out what exactly these commands are ...
2
votes
1
answer
636
views
How to escape all of the special characters in order to be able to print the string as is?
I'm creating a tcsh script on the fly (with a static language). I have a <add-command-here> section that contains some command. I want to do:
echo <add-command-here>
In that <add-...
- 83
1
vote
0
answers
99
views
How to move all the files with specific prefix of the directory? [duplicate]
I have a following directory structure (assume no two files have the same name):
Apple1
apple1.jpg
apple2.jpg
Apple2
apple3.jpg
apple4.jpg
Apple3
Tomato
Peach
And i would like to move one ...
3
votes
4
answers
459
views
Using cut with pling/exclamation mark as a delimiter
In shell (not Bash) I have a string like this that I want to parse:
stringhere/morestring!99
After parsing, I want to keep the 99 at the end, and throw away the rest of the string.
The substring that ...
- 141
3
votes
1
answer
88
views
Why does substituting eval with declare (for creating dynamic variables) result in an empty variable?
With bash >5, I'm trying to assign a different value to variables depending on the architecture specified in a variable. I use a function to do so. This works perfectly:
# arguments:
variable ...
- 33
3
votes
1
answer
100
views
Cannot understand this bash shell argument expansion
Totally crazy about the following commands:
declare -a partition_files
readarray -d '' partition_files < <(find "$choosen_image_folder" -name "*sda${i}.gz*")
# this does not ...
- 141
0
votes
0
answers
28
views
How to iterate over matches which contain spaces [duplicate]
I have a file that looks like this
# ... stuff
@late()
def test1():
# ...
@late()
def test2():
# ...
I need to get each match after the @late() line and do some work on them.
I've tried ...
- 131
5
votes
2
answers
421
views
Why does quoting not protect filenames that start with "-" against mis-interpretation? [duplicate]
This might be a ridiculous post, but let's say we have a file called -|h4k3r|-, why doesn't this quoting work?
cat '-|h4k3r|-'
I thought single quotes remove meaning of all special characters?
...
- 153
0
votes
2
answers
86
views
Converting multiline to single line in a file looses double quotes
Here is my sample file
cat test.txt
"IND WEB",
"Speed Web (Internal webserver)",
"Web Bill",
I tried the below two solutions to convert multiline to single line however ...
- 307
0
votes
2
answers
167
views
Bash interpreting special character within single quotes [duplicate]
Ran into some unexpected but interesting behavior. I was doing a somewhat complex execution when I ran into a situation that from my understanding of how Bash handles characters shouldn't have ...
- 339
0
votes
1
answer
41
views
Putting single quote in the begining of column
I have a .txt file with publications for which columns are separated by a single space.
However, titles also have spaces an in order to separate the columns correctly I need to have all titles in ...
- 1
1
vote
1
answer
1k
views
grep: use square brackets to match specific characters
So I am experimenting with the power of grep using this resources
The problem I am currently encountering is that it doesn't seem to work as I intended. so I have an demo.txt file that contains foo....
- 171
7
votes
3
answers
582
views
How would you gracefully handle this snippet to allow for spaces in directories?
I have a series of commands, e.g.:
ssh -i key 10.10.10.10 mkdir -p "${DEST_PATH}/subdir1" "${DEST_PATH}/subdir2"
rsync "${SOURCE_PATH}" "$DEST_HOST:${DEST_PATH}/...
- 118
0
votes
1
answer
51
views
How to set sed command correctly
When I try following commands, (I'd like to rewrite sql).
Day='2020/12/1'
Dir=/home/test/data
sql=`cat $Dir"/"$test".sql" | sed -e "s/Day/$Day/g"`
I suffered following ...
- 177
3
votes
1
answer
1k
views
Escaping backlash and double quotes inside a sed expression (surrounded by double quotes)
$ echo 'output: " ' | sed "s/\"/\"/"
output: "
$ echo 'output: " ' | sed "s/\"/\\\"/"
output: "
$ echo 'output: " ' | sed "s/\&...
- 33