I'm aware of how to get the last argument passed to a function but I'm wondering how to get all the arguments of a function after the first two:
For instance:
function custom_scp(){
PORT=$1
USER=$2
SOURCES=`ALL_OTHER_ARGS`
scp -P $PORT -r $SOURCES [email protected]:~/
}
So sending three files to the remote home directory would look like
$ custom_scp 8001 me ./env.py ./test.py ./haha.py
Just shift off the front ones as you're done with them; what's left will be in "$@".
This has the advantage of being compatible with all POSIX shells (the only extension used in the below is local, and it's a widespread one, even available in dash).
custom_scp() {
local user port # avoid polluting namespace outside your function
port=$1; shift # assign to a local variable, then pop off the argument list
user=$1; shift # repeat
scp -P "$port" -r "$@" "${user}@myserver.com:~/"
}
You can use array slice notation:
custom_scp() {
local port=$1
local user=$2
local sources=("${@:3}")
scp -P "$port" -r "${sources[@]}" "[email protected]:~/"
}
Quoting from the Bash manual:
${parameter:offset}
${parameter:offset:length}If parameter is
@, the result is length positional parameters beginning at offset.
function foo() {is mixing POSIX sh and ksh function declaration formats in a way that's compatible with neither POSIX sh nor with legacy ksh. Pick one or the other:foo() {is the POSIX form,function foo {is the ksh form.USER, for example, is a reserved variable name. By overwriting it, you're potentially breaking other commands run later in the same session. See pubs.opengroup.org/onlinepubs/9699919799/basedefs/… -- all-caps names are used for variables that modify system behavior, lower-case names are reserved for application use. Setting a shell variable with the same name as an environment variable overwrites the latter, so the namespace rules apply to both sets.