I have a directory "a b c/x y z"

I would like to assign it an environment variable so I can "cd" to it, as in:

A="a b c/x y z";export A

so that I can "cd $A".

I've tried single quotes, double quotes, backslashes and permutations thereof, but NOTHING works.

Any help would be graciously accepted.

It is working for me:

# a="a b/c d"
# cd $a
# pwd
/root/test/a b/c d

here's what happens to me:

Winstons-MacBook-Pro:bh winstonlee$ a="a b/x y"
Winstons-MacBook-Pro:bh winstonlee$ cd $a
-bash: cd: a: No such file or directory
Winstons-MacBook-Pro:bh winstonlee$ ls -ls "a b"
total 0
0 drwxr-xr-x  2 winstonlee  staff  68 Jul 10 16:59 x y
Winstons-MacBook-Pro:bh winstonlee$

Hmmm... OSX? What shell are you using?

dunno; does this help?

Winstons-MacBook-Pro:bh winstonlee$ echo ++++++++;env|sort;echo ++++++++
++++++++
Apple_PubSub_Socket_Render=/tmp/launch-BY8Q0h/Render
Apple_Ubiquity_Message=/tmp/launch-9h1fCp/Apple_Ubiquity_Message
BHTV15=/Users/winstonlee/Desktop/Apps/BrightHouse/iOS Projects/bhn-ios-1.5_05April_Defect697
BHTV2=/Users/winstonlee/Desktop/Apps/BrightHouse/AndroidProjects/bhn-ios-2-0
COMMAND_MODE=unix2003
DISPLAY=/tmp/launch-q5Y1id/org.x:0
HISTSIZE=4000
HOME=/Users/winstonlee
LANG=en_US.UTF-8
LOGNAME=winstonlee
OLDPWD=/Users/winstonlee
PATH=/usr/bin:/bin:/usr/sbin:/sbin:/usr/local/bin:/usr/X11/bin
PWD=/Users/winstonlee/bh
SHELL=/bin/bash
SHLVL=1
SSH_AUTH_SOCK=/tmp/launch-WI9YBK/Listeners
TERM=xterm-256color
TERM_PROGRAM=Apple_Terminal
TERM_PROGRAM_VERSION=303.2
TERM_SESSION_ID=3D7D5A54-96ED-4FD8-A9C2-C0EDFC140744
TMPDIR=/var/folders/4w/kshc1x5n0qjd0yhn8k4c8w2c0000gn/T/
USER=winstonlee
_=/usr/bin/env
__CF_USER_TEXT_ENCODING=0x1F5:0:0
++++++++
Winstons-MacBook-Pro:bh winstonlee$

Try KSH maybe like this:

# ksh
# a="a b"
# cd "$a"

In bash or ksh, quotes are so important when a string contains space characters:

A="a b/x y"
cd "$A"