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YANQ (Yet Another Newbie Question)

 
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# 1  
Old 07-10-2012
YANQ (Yet Another Newbie Question)
I have a directory "a b c/x y z"

I would like to assign it an environment variable so I can "cd" to it, as in:

A="a b c/x y z";export A

so that I can "cd $A".

I've tried single quotes, double quotes, backslashes and permutations thereof, but NOTHING works.Smilie

Any help would be graciously accepted.
# 2  
Old 07-10-2012
It is working for me:
Code:
# a="a b/c d"
# cd $a
# pwd
/root/test/a b/c d

Can you post exact commands that you are using?
This User Gave Thanks to bartus11 For This Post:
wel51x
# 3  
Old 07-10-2012
here's what happens to me:
Code:
Winstons-MacBook-Pro:bh winstonlee$ a="a b/x y"
Winstons-MacBook-Pro:bh winstonlee$ cd $a
-bash: cd: a: No such file or directory
Winstons-MacBook-Pro:bh winstonlee$ ls -ls "a b"
total 0
0 drwxr-xr-x  2 winstonlee  staff  68 Jul 10 16:59 x y
Winstons-MacBook-Pro:bh winstonlee$

Last edited by Scrutinizer; 07-11-2012 at 03:50 AM.. Reason: please ue code tags
# 4  
Old 07-10-2012
Hmmm... OSX? What shell are you using?
This User Gave Thanks to bartus11 For This Post:
wel51x
# 5  
Old 07-10-2012
dunno; does this help?


Code:
Winstons-MacBook-Pro:bh winstonlee$ echo ++++++++;env|sort;echo ++++++++
++++++++
Apple_PubSub_Socket_Render=/tmp/launch-BY8Q0h/Render
Apple_Ubiquity_Message=/tmp/launch-9h1fCp/Apple_Ubiquity_Message
BHTV15=/Users/winstonlee/Desktop/Apps/BrightHouse/iOS Projects/bhn-ios-1.5_05April_Defect697
BHTV2=/Users/winstonlee/Desktop/Apps/BrightHouse/AndroidProjects/bhn-ios-2-0
COMMAND_MODE=unix2003
DISPLAY=/tmp/launch-q5Y1id/org.x:0
HISTSIZE=4000
HOME=/Users/winstonlee
LANG=en_US.UTF-8
LOGNAME=winstonlee
OLDPWD=/Users/winstonlee
PATH=/usr/bin:/bin:/usr/sbin:/sbin:/usr/local/bin:/usr/X11/bin
PWD=/Users/winstonlee/bh
SHELL=/bin/bash
SHLVL=1
SSH_AUTH_SOCK=/tmp/launch-WI9YBK/Listeners
TERM=xterm-256color
TERM_PROGRAM=Apple_Terminal
TERM_PROGRAM_VERSION=303.2
TERM_SESSION_ID=3D7D5A54-96ED-4FD8-A9C2-C0EDFC140744
TMPDIR=/var/folders/4w/kshc1x5n0qjd0yhn8k4c8w2c0000gn/T/
USER=winstonlee
_=/usr/bin/env
__CF_USER_TEXT_ENCODING=0x1F5:0:0
++++++++
Winstons-MacBook-Pro:bh winstonlee$

---------- Post updated at 05:12 PM ---------- Previous update was at 05:11 PM ----------

duh, I guess it's bash

---------- Post updated at 05:12 PM ---------- Previous update was at 05:12 PM ----------

OS is Lion
Last edited by methyl; 07-10-2012 at 06:48 PM.. Reason: code tags and highlight important line
# 6  
Old 07-10-2012
Try KSH maybe like this:
Code:
# ksh
# a="a b"
# cd "$a"

# 7  
Old 07-10-2012
In bash or ksh, quotes are so important when a string contains space characters:

Code:
A="a b/x y"
cd "$A"

The double quotes are known as "soft quotes" because you can still do variable substitution. You cannot do variable subtitution within single quotes.

Mini explanation. The cd command only expects one parameter. The default parameter separator is white space. Therefore without the double quotes it only read the a.

I don't know what Shell @bartus11 has but it is certainly unusual.
Last edited by methyl; 07-10-2012 at 06:50 PM.. Reason: change case of variable to make "a" unambiguous
This User Gave Thanks to methyl For This Post:
wel51x
 
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