Shell Programming and Scripting

Hello, Im writing a script that works by recursively going into directories with find. But I have some directories that have spaces in them.. so I need to parse the variables to add a backslash before the spaces.

Im not exactly sure how how to do this in bash, and honestly I dont think I know how to do this in perl either

example of one of the variables I am working with is this:

$myvar = File 1/File 2/this is my file.txt

So I need to make my variable this --

$myvar = File\ 1/File\ 2/this\ is\ my\ file.txt

and if it matters, myvar is generated in a loop with the find command: `find File\ 1/File\ 2/ -name "*.txt" -print`

Thanks for any help.
Trey

Thanks $deity this conclusion is wrong. Just enclose your variable content in double quotes to protect the content:

Code:

myvar="File 1/File 2/this is my file.txt"

and pass it this way:

Code:

subfunc "$myvar"

inside the function (or the external script, its the same for that matter) use it also protected. Example:

Code:

function subfunc
{
local myvar="$1"      # notice the double quotes

some_command "$some_path/$myvar" another_arg

return 0
}

I hope this helps.

bakunin

Thanks for the suggestions. I am unable to try it at this moment... since myvar is in a loop being generated by the find command. How could I go about adding the double quotes to it?

That does not matter. There must be somewhere (a part of) a statement where this variable is populated. One of the following three possibilities:

Code:

var=some value
var=$(some command)
var=`some command`

The last one is simply to be changed to the second one (for the greater good of shell programming ;-)) ) and the first two can be enclosed in double quotes:

Code:

var="some value"
var="$(some command)"
var=`some command` => var="$(some command)"

Post the (relevant part of the) code if you are not sure how to do it.

I hope this helps.

bakunin