Passing Command Line Args in a Single Variable? Post: 302685863

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Top Forums Shell Programming and Scripting Passing Command Line Args in a Single Variable? Post 302685863 by Corona688 on Monday 13th of August 2012 12:39:36 PM

08-13-2012

Registered User

Hmmm. One way you can avoid quotes within quotes, and keep everything intact including spaces, is using the $1 $2 ... arguments. This will override your $1 $2 ... variables but if you're not using them anyway...

Code:

set -- # Set arguments completely blank
set -- a b c
echo $1 # should print a
echo $2 # should print b

set -- "a b" c
echo $1 # should print a b
echo $2 # should print c

# "$@" is a special var that ought to expand arguments w/o splitting
set -- "$@" "third arg" 
echo $1 # should print a b
echo $2 # should print c
echo $3 # should print third arg

So whenever you get a new argument, you can do set -- "$@" "next arg" "another arg" "Etc"

To use the arguments in order withour rearrangement or splitting, you can do $command "$@"

Again, note that "$@" is special. It does split, unlike other things in double-quotes -- but only on arguments, not on spaces, so the exact arguments you give are preserved.

And because of the way shell handles quotes, --arg="whatever" actually gets passed as --arg=whatever anyway. You do not need to insert quotes into there as long as no extra splitting happens, which will never happen with "$@".

Last edited by Corona688; 08-13-2012 at 01:49 PM..

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echo

echo(1B)					     SunOS/BSD Compatibility Package Commands						  echo(1B)

NAME

       echo - echo arguments to standard output

SYNOPSIS

       /usr/ucb/echo [-n] [argument]

DESCRIPTION

       echo writes its arguments, separated by BLANKs and terminated by a NEWLINE, to the standard output.

       echo  is useful for producing diagnostics in command files and for sending known data into a pipe, and for displaying the contents of envi-
       ronment variables.

       For example, you can use echo to determine how many subdirectories below the root directory (/) is your current directory, as follows:

	   o	  echo your current-working-directory's full pathname

	   o	  pipe the output through tr to translate the path's embedded slash-characters into space-characters

	   o	  pipe that output through wc -w for a count of the names in your path.

		    example% /usr/bin/echo "echo $PWD | tr '/' ' ' | wc -w"

       See tr(1) and wc(1) for their functionality.

       The shells csh(1), ksh(1), and sh(1), each have an echo built-in command, which, by default, will have precedence, and will be  invoked	if
       the  user  calls  echo without a full pathname. /usr/ucb/echo and csh's echo() have an -n option, but do not understand back-slashed escape
       characters. sh's echo(), ksh's echo(), and /usr/bin/echo, on the other hand, understand the  black-slashed  escape  characters,	and  ksh's
       echo() also understands a as the audible bell character; however, these commands do not have an -n option.

OPTIONS

       -n    Do not add the NEWLINE to the output.

ATTRIBUTES

       See attributes(5) for descriptions of the following attributes:

       +-----------------------------+-----------------------------+
       |      ATTRIBUTE TYPE	     |	    ATTRIBUTE VALUE	   |
       +-----------------------------+-----------------------------+
       |Availability		     |SUNWscpu			   |
       +-----------------------------+-----------------------------+

SEE ALSO

       csh(1), echo(1), ksh(1), sh(1), tr(1), wc(1), attributes(5)

NOTES

       The -n option is a transition aid for BSD applications, and may not be supported in future  releases.

SunOS 5.11							    3 Aug 1994								  echo(1B)