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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
 

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ohcount

OHCOUNT(1)							   User Commands							OHCOUNT(1)

NAME

       ohcount - manual page for ohcount 3.0.0

SYNOPSIS

       ohcount [option] [paths...]

DESCRIPTION

       Ohloh source code line counter command line tool.

	      http://www.ohloh.net/

   [option] can be one of the following:
       -a, --annotate

       -d, --detect

       -h, --help

       -i, --individual

       -l, --license

       -re

       -s, --summary

       -a, --annotate		       Show annotated source code

	      The  contents  of  all  source  code files found within the given paths will be emitted to stdout. Each line will be prefixed with a
	      tab-delimited language name and semantic categorization (code, comment, or blank).

       -d, --detect		       Find source code files

	      Recursively find all source code files within the given paths.  For each source code file found, the file name will  be  emitted	to
	      stdout prefixed with a tab-delimited language name.

       -h, --help		       Display this message

       -i, --individual 	       Count lines of code per file

	      Count  lines  in	all source code files within the given paths, and emit a report of the lines of code, comments, and blanks in each
	      language per file.

       -l, --license

	      Displays detected licensing information contained in each source code file.

       -re

	      Prints raw entity information to the screen (mainly for debugging).

       -s, --summary		       Count lines of code (default)

	      Count lines in all source code files within the given paths, and emit a report of the total number of lines of code,  comments,  and
	      blanks in each language. This is the default action.

       [paths] can refer to any number of individual files or directories.

	      Directories will be probed recursively. If no path is given, the current directory will be used.

ohcount 3.0.0							  September 2011							OHCOUNT(1)
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