handling spaces in unix


 
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# 1  
Old 11-05-2001
Question handling spaces in unix

I am testing a ksh script for email. In the script I receive several parameters. One of them is a subject. The subject may contain spaces. Ex. Test this. When I am running the script on telnet to test, how should the syntax at the command line be written. I have this:

ksh ResendE.sh '001111' '000001' 'christest.WDA.001111.000001. 'WDA' '01-NOV-01' '01-NOV-01' 'christest.WDA.001111' "" "" 'this subject' 'destintion'

this command believes the subject is blank. If I use double quotes I get the same results as I did from using single quotes. Can this be accomplished?
# 2  
Old 11-05-2001
It looks like you are passing 11 command line args.
(the 3rd one is missing a quote - typo?)
The "" and "" I assume are "empty" strings you wish to
pass as args 8 and 9?
You should be able to pass arguments containing
spaces in single or double quotes without a problem.


You can add...
set -x
...to your script and actually trace the variable assigments
during execution and hopfully find the error.

If your still having problems, it might help to see the script.
# 3  
Old 11-06-2001
Also, you can add a "\" before each space, for example:

This\ is\ the\ subject

Also, if your shell allows it, you could set the IFS equal to something else, like the ":" character...

YMMV since I did not test this before posting.
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