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passing arguments to external script

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# 8  
Old 04-04-2011
Quote:
Originally Posted by gigagigosu
echo $all_PDFs
"/my_files/1.pdf" "/my_files/2.pdf"

/Scripts/Combine_PDFs_python.py -o /TEST`date +%H-%M-%S`.pdf $all_PDFs
this command produces an empty PDF (incorrect)
There is no quote removal done on the results of parameter expansion. The file names seen by the python script in this case include those quotes.

Quote:
Originally Posted by gigagigosu
/Scripts/Combine_PDFs_python.py -o /TEST`date +%H-%M-%S`.pdf "/my_files/1.pdf" "/my_files/2.pdf"
this command produces a correct result, the only difference is replacement of $all_PDFs with content... what am i doing wrong?
In this example, the shell will remove those quotes after it's done processing the command, so the python script will not see those quotes as part of the filenames.

Regards,
Alister
This User Gave Thanks to alister For This Post:
gigagigosu
# 9  
Old 04-04-2011
and how can i pass the correct paths if i have weird characters?
# 10  
Old 04-04-2011
Code:
all_PDFS="$(echo $all_PDFS | tr -d '"')"

Depending on your shell you may be able to accomplish this with less expensive string operations as well.

If your shell's extremely old you may have to use backticks instead of $( )
# 11  
Old 04-04-2011
Corona688,

thank you but that didn't solve the issue with weird names within paths. files with names containing spaces (as an example) will be omitted from being joined, all other ones will be joined properly.
# 12  
Old 04-04-2011
Quote:
Originally Posted by gigagigosu
my script is:

Code:
source_folder=/my_files
cd "$source_folder"
if [ "$(ls -A)" ]; then
for PDF_file in *
 do
  quoted_filename=\"$source_folder/$PDF_file\"
  all_PDFs="$all_PDFs $quoted_filename"
 done
fi

echo "$all_PDFs"
/Scripts/Combine_PDFs_python.py -o /TEST`date +%H-%M-%S`.pdf "$all_PDFs"

this will output:
Code:
 "/my_files/1.pdf" "/my_files/2.pdf"

my python script (part of the OS) is supposed to join these PDFs but it produces an empty PDF
Quote:
Originally Posted by gigagigosu
and how can i pass the correct paths if i have weird characters?
Why not simply do the following instead?
Code:
source_folder=/my_files
/Scripts/Combine_PDFs_python.py -o /TEST`date +%H-%M-%S`.pdf "$source_folder"/*

Pathname expansion, which expands the asterisk into the filenames, happens after field splitting and all other subsitutions. This is by design. It is immune to "weird characters".

Regards,
Alister
This User Gave Thanks to alister For This Post:
gigagigosu
# 13  
Old 04-04-2011
alister,

that's the difference between an amateur like me and a pro like you Smilie you need only 2 lines to complete a script
# 14  
Old 04-04-2011
Quote:
Originally Posted by gigagigosu
Corona688,

thank you but that didn't solve the issue with weird names within paths. files with names containing spaces (as an example) will be omitted from being joined, all other ones will be joined properly.
You can't help unwanted things splitting on spaces when your list is separated by spaces.

Most here could have suggested that if you'd posted your complete script, or at least what your actual intentions are("want to combine all PDF's in this folder", not "want to split this string so I can feed names into a thing"). Without that, we're stuck working with what you've given us.
This User Gave Thanks to Corona688 For This Post:
gigagigosu
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