CODEWITHSUNDEEP
bashshellargumentsescapingquoting
Marcus
Marcus

Reputation: 5245

How to process in a script Bash arguments with spaces?

I have a Bash script which (in a simplified form) does this:

#!/bin/bash

function ag_search_and_replace {
  ag -l "$1" "${@:3}" | xargs -r perl -i -pe "s/$1/$2/g"
}

locations="$@"

ag_search_and_replace search replace $locations

This works as expected when the argument have no spaces, e.g.:

my_script foo bar

however, when there are spaces, e.g.:

my_script foo "ba r"

the script fails.

Is there a simple way to process arguments with spaces?

Upvotes: 1

Views: 52

Answers (1)

chepner
chepner

Reputation: 530872

"$@" is the way to do it, but you lose the benefits when you unnecessarily assign it to a regular variable.

ag_search_and_replace search replace "$@"

If you must create a new named variable, use an array.

locations=( "$@" )
ag_search_and_replace search replace "${locations[@]}"

Upvotes: 4

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