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Passing a variable value to an option

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# 1  
Old 09-28-2014
Passing a variable value to an option
Hello,

I am new to shell (i.e. linux bash) programming and have the following question:

When using this wget command I can download a certain website that needs login information by passing a previously acquired cookie:

Code:
wget --header='Cookie: SID=ac658ef0876b24ff456' somewebsite.com

As cookies sometimes get very long, I want to shorten the command by storing the cookie in a variable and passing the value of that variable as an option to wget like this:

Code:
cookie='Cookie: SID=ac658ef0876b24ff456'

wget --header=$cookie somewebsite.com

But this doesn't seem to work at all. The cookie is not being passed to the website as in the first case. Who knows what I am doing wrong?
# 2  
Old 09-28-2014
Spaces in an unquoted variable expansion will split it into several parts. Put it in double quotes to avoid this.

Code:
wget --header="$cookie" ...

The quotes will not appear in the string. You can convince yourself of this with printf:

Code:
printf "%s\n" "$cookie"

# 3  
Old 09-29-2014
iggy98,
Corona688 is right, but additionaly to that, the --header option of the wget command obviously requires the cookie to be in single quotes.

Try
Code:
cookie="'Cookie: SID=ac658ef0876b24ff456'"
wget --header=$cookie somewebsite.com

or
Code:
cookie='Cookie: SID=ac658ef0876b24ff456'
wget --header="'$cookie'" somewebsite.com

# 4  
Old 09-29-2014
Quote:
Originally Posted by junior-helper
iggy98,
Corona688 is right, but additionaly to that, the --header option of the wget command obviously requires the cookie to be in single quotes.
It does not.

Quotes do not work that way.

Play with single-quotes and printf until you've satisfied yourself of the fact that the shell does not pass literal single or double quote characters into a program. Then realize how nesting single quotes in double quotes accomplishes nothing but injecting weird characters where they do not belong.
Last edited by Corona688; 09-29-2014 at 12:45 PM..
This User Gave Thanks to Corona688 For This Post:
iggy98
# 5  
Old 09-29-2014
Indeed, I tried junior-helper's examples and it didn't work either. Corona688 you got it right. I was already in despair about that issue - thank you very much !
This User Gave Thanks to iggy98 For This Post:
Corona688
# 6  
Old 09-29-2014
Glad to help, is the issue solved then?
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