CODEWITHSUNDEEP
bashcommand-line-argumentsquotes
Nicolas
Nicolas

Reputation: 6494

Using "$@" inside others quotes in bash

Here is the code of the bash script I want to execute : opening a new console and execute in it clamscan with a list of files

gnome-terminal -x sh -c "clamscan $@"

After expansion here what is really executed if the 2 arguments given to the script are
file1.txt file2.txt

gnome-terminal -x sh -c 'clamscan file1.txt' file2.txt

As you see only clamscan file1.txt is executed.

If I try another way to write the code

gnome-terminal -x sh -c "clamscan \"$@\""

Here is the expansion result

gnome-terminal -x sh -c 'clamscan "file1.txt' 'file2.txt"'

It doesn't work better.
Does anyone knows how to properly integrate "$@" inside others quotes?

Edit My goal is to have after expansion something like

gnome-terminal -x sh -c 'clamscan "file1.txt" "file2.txt"'

Upvotes: 3

Views: 143

Answers (4)

Zulu
Zulu

Reputation: 9275

You can use variable substitutions : ${@/ /\\ }

Upvotes: 1

Olaf Dietsche
Olaf Dietsche

Reputation: 74028

From man bash

3.4.2 Special Parameters
@
Expands to the positional parameters, starting from one. When the expansion occurs within double quotes, each parameter expands to a separate word. That is, "$@" is equivalent to "$1" "$2" ….

The important part is equivalent, it does not expand to "$1" "$2", i.e. with double quotes. If you need that, you have two choices, prepare the parameters yourself 

for i in "$@"; do
    args="$args \"$i\""
done

gnome-terminal -x clamscan $args

or put part of the command line in a script

script.sh:

clamscan "$@"

and call that 

gnome-terminal -x script.sh file1.txt file2.txt

Upvotes: 3

Davide Berra
Davide Berra

Reputation: 6568

Try this

#!/bin/bash

params=("$@")

for i in "${params[@]}"
do
    string="${string} \'$i\'"
done;

// subst with your full command, this is only for test purposes
sh -c "echo ${string}"

Testing:

[root@myhost test]# sh ./script.sh aaaa "bbbb cccc"
'aaaa' 'bbbb cccc'

Upvotes: 2

Raad
Raad

Reputation: 4648

Try:

gnome-terminal -x sh -c `echo "$@"`

although I'm not sure I understand what the script is ultimately trying to do (it appears you want to execute one or more files which may contain spaces in their file names).

Upvotes: 0

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