Login or Register to Ask a Question and Join Our Community

Sponsored Content
Full Discussion: File paths with spaces in a variable
Operating Systems OS X (Apple) File paths with spaces in a variable Post 302739491 by bakunin on Tuesday 4th of December 2012 09:17:58 AM
Old 12-04-2012
Quote:
Originally Posted by tillett22
Hi all my very first post so go easy on me!!
No problem: would you please use CODE-tags when posting code? Thank you.

Quote:
Code:
#!/bin/bash
X="/Library/Users/Application\ Support/"

LS="ls"
AL="-al"

$LS $AL $X

I know this is a problem with the space in the file path but I thought the "" would pass to the commandline with no issues but I am wrong.
True. The problem is in the last line: your definition of "X" is ok, since the space is protected there (try removing the double quotes and you will get an error if you remove the escape "\" too). But when your script gets to the last line it first replaces "$X" with its contents and only then executes the line. This is "ls" is presented two parameters, separated by a space (which was no longer protected) the first and the second part of "$X". "ls" is fine with getting two paths, but these two paths, "/Library/Users/Application" and "Support/" do not exist, hence you get two errors, one for the first missing path and one for the second.

Use

Code:
$LS $AL "$X"

or, if you are completely paranoid, like me:

Code:
"$LS" "$AL" "$X"

and it will work as expected.

I hope this helps.

bakunin
 

10 More Discussions You Might Find Interesting

1. Shell Programming and Scripting

Strip leading and trailing spaces only in a shell variable with embedded spaces

I am trying to strip all leading and trailing spaces of a shell variable using either awk or sed or any other utility, however unscuccessful and need your help. echo $SH_VAR | command_line Syntax. The SH_VAR contains embedded spaces which needs to be preserved. I need only for the leading and... (6 Replies)
Discussion started by: jerardfjay
6 Replies

2. Shell Programming and Scripting

Variable containing spaces

Hi, my var is: PATH_LOG=/opt/WebSphere/CR Comune Roma.log a filename which contains blank chars. How can I call it from prompt ? Ex: ls $PATH_LOG or cat $PATH_LOG tks, Carmen- (2 Replies)
Discussion started by: Carmen123
2 Replies

3. UNIX for Dummies Questions & Answers

Unable to use mimesender to send attachments with spaces in the file names / paths

Hello, I found the mimesender multiple attachment emailing shell script in the FAQ of these forums, and I have been able to use it to send multiple files, but only if they don't have spaces in their file name or path. When I attempt to send a file with spaces in it's name, enclosed... (0 Replies)
Discussion started by: rsmorra
0 Replies

4. Shell Programming and Scripting

Removing blank spaces, tab spaces from file

Hello All, I am trying to remove all tabspaces and all blankspaces from my file using sed & awk, but not getting proper code. Please help me out. My file is like this (<b> means one blank space, <t> means one tab space)- $ cat file NARESH<b><b><b>KUMAR<t><t>PRADHAN... (3 Replies)
Discussion started by: NARESH1302
3 Replies

5. Shell Programming and Scripting

Help setting variable from file contents with spaces

I suppose the easiest way to explain my problem is to show you some code and then show you what the code outputs: -------------------------------------------------- #!/bin/bash echo "This line has spaces" > "/tmp/This Filename Has Spaces.txt" export Foo=$(cat "/tmp/This Filename Has... (4 Replies)
Discussion started by: nrogers64
4 Replies

6. Shell Programming and Scripting

Using sed to replace a string in file with a string in a variable that contains spaces

Hi, i call my shell like: my_shell "my project name" my script: #!/bin/bash -vx projectname=$1 sed s/'PROJECT_NAME ='/'PROJECT_NAME = '$projectname/ <test_config_doxy >temp cp temp test_config_doxy the following error occurres: sed s/'PROJECT_NAME ... (2 Replies)
Discussion started by: vivelafete
2 Replies

7. Shell Programming and Scripting

Rewriting file paths in XML file within bash script

Hi guys, I'm working on a large set of scripts to move files around several servers and manipulate them for our staff. Basically we're shooting things, the videos hit a server and then need organised due to the language they've been shot in. Our XML (designed for Apple's Final Cut Pro) is right... (6 Replies)
Discussion started by: omfgbunnies
6 Replies

8. Shell Programming and Scripting

Storing multiple file paths in a variable

I am working on a script for Mac OS X that, among many other things, gets a list of all the installed Applications. I am pulling the list from the system_profiler command and formatting it using grep and awk. The problem is that I want to be able to use each result individually later in the script.... (3 Replies)
Discussion started by: cranfordio
3 Replies

9. Shell Programming and Scripting

Help with reading directory paths with spaces from a file

Hi I want to know how to handle the spaces in the below scenario. I have a file (CON_zip_path_1.txt) which has some directory paths with spaces in directory names . My requirement is to unzip these zip files to another path. Please see the code below and the error. CON_zip_path_1.txt... (4 Replies)
Discussion started by: paul1234
4 Replies

10. Shell Programming and Scripting

Linux Commands needed for replacing variable number of spaces with a single , in a txt file

Hi I want to read a text file and replace various number of spaces between each string in to a single "," or any other character .Please let me know the command to do so. My input file is a txt file which is the output of a SQL table extract so it contains so many spaces between each column of the... (2 Replies)
Discussion started by: Hari Prasanth
2 Replies

LEARN ABOUT DEBIAN

build-lives-rfx-plugin

build-lives-rfx-plugin(1)				      General Commands Manual					 build-lives-rfx-plugin(1)

NAME

       build-lives-rfx-plugin - builds rendered effects for LiVES

SYNOPSIS

       build-lives-rfx-plugin script_name [plugin_dir] -get section file

DESCRIPTION

       This perl script is used by LiVES to compile an RFX (rendered effect) plugin for LiVES. It is generally called from build-lives-rfx-plugin-
       multi for a script which has a language code representing LiVES-perl. The script_name must be  the  full  (absolute)  path  to  the  plugin
       script,	and  plugin_dir  can  be  used to specify the output directory where the compiled plugin should be generated. If plugin_dir is not
       defined then /tmp is assumed.

       The second variant with -get is used to print out a script section from a plugin script to stdout. It is generally only used internally	by
       LiVES.

       Return values The script returns the following values

       0 - success 1 - the value of a trigger was greater than the number of parameters 2 - a value could not be read from the script file 3 - the
       language code of the plugin script was not equivalent to LiVES-perl 4 - the API version level of the plugin script  was	invalid  5  -  the
       <define> section was missing from the plugin script

SEE ALSO

       build-lives-rfx-plugin-multi(1), lives(1)

AUTHOR

       Gabriel Finch a.k.a Salsaman (salsaman@xs4all.nl)

								    May 9 2010						 build-lives-rfx-plugin(1)
All times are GMT -4. The time now is 09:28 AM.
Unix & Linux Forums Content Copyright 1993-2022. All Rights Reserved.
Privacy Policy