Date: Sat, 23 Aug 2008 10:16:36 -0400 From: Thomas Dickey <dickey@radix.net> To: questions@freebsd.org Subject: Re: space char shell script problem Message-ID: <20080823141636.GA439@saltmine.radix.net> In-Reply-To: <20080823160957.22e6254f.freebsd@edvax.de> References: <20080823101941.GA42601@skytracker.ca> <20080823160957.22e6254f.freebsd@edvax.de>
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On Sat, Aug 23, 2008 at 04:09:57PM +0200, Polytropon wrote:
> On Sat, 23 Aug 2008 06:19:42 -0400, David Banning <david+dated+1219918782.39167f@skytracker.ca> wrote:
> > I am running into a problem with the space character in filenames.
> > For instance, If I want to run the script;
> >
> > for x in `ls`
> > do
> > echo $x
> > done
> >
> > then filenames that have a space in them ie: "john smith.jpg"
> > are processed by my script as two names, "john" and "smith.jpg".
> >
> > What is the best way to deal with this type of space problem in the shell?
>
> The best way is not to use spaces in filenames; underscores perform
> their purpose very well without making things more complicated. :-)
spaces won't go away, and since they're legal in filenames, one may as
well handle them.
> To iterate over files, I would not use `ls`, instead, I would let
> the shell do the expansion of * for me, as it has already been
> suggested.
>
> Because the file names x iterates contain spaces, be very (!) careful
> to assure that the applications you call with these filenames get
> the spaces correctly masked, either put the filename in quotes or
> substituts " " by "\ ". You would have won nothing when the application
> you call with the filename interpretes it as an argument list with
> two elements.
A script like
#!/bin/sh
for x in "$@"
do
echo $x
done
handles quoting nicely enough (for spaces, anyway). ls will translate
some non-printing characters to printable; the 'find' program is a better
alternative if one must derive the list inside the program.
> for x in *; do
> echo "${x}"
> done
>
> Replace the middle line with any program call you want.
>
>
> --
> Polytropon
> >From Magdeburg, Germany
> Happy FreeBSD user since 4.0
> Andra moi ennepe, Mousa, ...
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--
Thomas E. Dickey
http://invisible-island.net
ftp://invisible-island.net
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