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Full Discussion: Escaping embedded variables
Top Forums Shell Programming and Scripting Escaping embedded variables Post 302275927 by vertigo23 on Monday 12th of January 2009 02:07:13 PM
Old 01-12-2009
Question Escaping embedded variables
I'm running into a problem with a differential backup script written in GNU Bash 3.0 - the following stripped down code demonstrates the problem quite nicely.

Code:
$ DATE="last tuesday"
$ date --date="$DATE"
Tue Jan  6 00:00:00 PST 2009

So far so good.

Code:
$ CMD="date --date=\"$DATE\""
$ echo $CMD
date --date="last tuesday"
$ $CMD
date: the argument `tuesday"' lacks a leading `+';
When using an option to specify date(s), any non-option
argument must be a format string beginning with `+'.
Try `date --help' for more information.

How can I wrap these variables up correctly? It seems like it's not parsing the quotes correctly, but from the contents of the CMD variable (see above), it looks fine. What gives?
 

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LEARN ABOUT CENTOS

bashbug

BASHBUG(1)						      General Commands Manual							BASHBUG(1)

NAME

       bashbug - report a bug in bash

SYNOPSIS

       bashbug [--version] [--help] [email-address]

DESCRIPTION

       bashbug	is  a shell script to help the user compose and mail bug reports concerning bash in a standard format.	bashbug invokes the editor
       specified by the environment variable EDITOR on a temporary copy of the bug report format outline. The user must fill  in  the  appropriate
       fields  and  exit  the  editor.	 bashbug  then	mails the completed report to bug-bash@gnu.org, or email-address.  If the report cannot be
       mailed, it is saved in the file dead.bashbug in the invoking user's home directory.

       The bug report format outline consists of several sections.  The first section provides information about the  machine,	operating  system,
       the  bash  version, and the compilation environment.  The second section should be filled in with a description of the bug.  The third sec-
       tion should be a description of how to reproduce the bug.  The optional fourth section is for a proposed fix.  Fixes are encouraged.

ENVIRONMENT

       bashbug will utilize the following environment variables if they exist:

       EDITOR Specifies the preferred editor. If EDITOR is not set, bashbug defaults to emacs.

       HOME   Directory in which the failed bug report is saved if the mail fails.

       TMPDIR Directory in which to create temporary files and directories.

SEE ALSO

       bash(1)

AUTHORS

       Brian Fox, Free Software Foundation
       bfox@gnu.org

       Chet Ramey, Case Western Reserve University
       chet@po.cwru.edu

GNU Bash-4.0							   1998 July 30 							BASHBUG(1)
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