UNIX for Dummies Questions & Answers

Hi All,

Have written a couple of lines to move the contents of a folder from a unix box to a windows location using smbclient (below)

Code:

 
 
smbclient '{servicename}' -A ~/.smbclientauth -c 'mkdir [network location]\test_folder"'
smbclient '{servicename}' -A ~/.smbclientauth -c 'cd [unix location]"; lcd [unix location]"; prompt;recurse; mput *; exit;'

Running the code on the command line ($ loadsmv.sh) works fine when the name of the folder is already in the code, however, I would like to try and use a command line variable to name the folder.

So the code would be run as ($ loadsmv.sh data_trans) which would then create a folder in the windows directory and read from the folder with the same name on the unix box.
I have tried various combinations of variable names and formats without much luck and am struggling trying to find the answer on google.
Any suggestions please?

Thanks in advance

Assuming you used single quotes in your shellscript as you did in the example above. Single quotes prevent variable expansion, meaning, that "$WHATEVER" goes literally into the command.

Replacing single quotes with double quotes might solve your problem.

By the way, your example above has unbalanced double quotes.

Yeah, that was me with the unbalanced quotes!

So the line;

Code:

smbclient '{servicename}' -A ~/.smbclientauth -c 'mkdir [network location]\test_folder'

would become

Code:

smbclient '{servicename}' -A ~/.smbclientauth -c 'mkdir [network location]\"$WHATEVER"'

and the second line would become

Code:

smbclient '{servicename}' -A ~/.smbclientauth -c 'cd [unix location]/"${WHATEVER}"; lcd [unix location]/"${WHATEVER}"; prompt;recurse; mput *; exit;'

So the command line would look like ($ loadsmv.sh FOLDER) and FOLDER would be created in windows and FOLDER would be read on the unix box?

Am learning this on the "fly", so thanks for any help

No, the variable must not be enclosed in single quotes. Try

Code:

smbclient '{servicename}' -A ~/.smbclientauth -c 'mkdir [network location]\\'"$WHATEVER"

instead. Notice, that the single quotes are closed before the variable. And the backslash has to be doubled, so that it stands for itself and does not escape the following single quote.

Yeah, have it and it works!
Second line was a complete b*tch though

Thank you very much for your help