Questions tagged [quoting]
Strings are typically delimited by quotes, which raises the problem of dealing with strings that include quotes.
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To what does an unquoted empty variable expand in bash?
To what value does an unquoted, undeclared variable expand to in order to return an exit status of 0?
Here is an example of a particular situation I ran into:
[ -n $var ]; echo $?
0
[ -n "$var&...
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Is there a command to write text to a file without redirection, pipe or function?
Pipes and redirection are two of the most powerful functions in Linux, and I love them.
However, I'm stuck with a situation where I need to write a fixed piece of text to a file without using a pipe, ...
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Using variables for Ghostscript options/flags causes errors
I am scripting the creation/manipulation of PDF files so I am using gs (Ghostscript). The problem I am having is that if I use a variable for the the options, gs errors out.
The command that I am ...
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Escaping double quotes inside command substitution
I am attempting to write a simple bash parser. I am following the steps in this wiki. One of the assumptions I make is that I can do a pass over the entire input string and remove all single and ...
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Command substitution inside double quotes
I am attempting to write a bash parser. Many resources have referred to this wiki
One area I am getting stuck is why the following would work
echo "$(echo "hi")" # output => ...
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How to construct bash command and arguments for ssh / su -c
I'm backing stuff up from an array list of sources, a bit like this simplified version:
sources=( file1 file2 "other stuff" )
backupcommand="rsync -ar ${a[@]} dest/"
su backupuser -...
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-perm flag in find
I'm trying to wrap my head around this command:
find /home/ -type d \( -perm -0002 -a ! -perm -1000 \) 2>/dev/null
I understand that it's going to look in the 'home' directory for all directories ...
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RemoteCommand with percent signs doesn't work
The following command
tmux new -A -s $(date +%Y%m%d%H%M%S)
works and starts tmux with a session, named after current datetime (as expected).
But if I put the same in ssh config
RemoteCommand tmux new ...
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How to double quote a wildcard pattern of files?
I've seen a bunch of similar questions to this one but none exactly the same.
I have a directory of files which I want to pass in as a single, double-quoted argument to a command, using wildcard ...
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Error while executing adb shell command
adb shell am broadcast -a com.test.app --es command "STOP" --es filename "sample 1.01.49 7-09-1380(01).apk"
I am trying to broadcast intent using the above adb command, where ...
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how to arrange quotes in this bash command
my_cmd --attr1 $(($1-$2)) --attr2 $(($1-$2+$3)) --attr3 $(($2+1))
I have this command and I would like to debug it (put it in echo and see how command will look like) but I am struggling with ...
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Why are aliases skipped if escaped?
A common way to skip aliases is to add a backslash before the aliased command.
For example,
$ alias ls='ls -l'
$ ls file
-rw-r--r-- 1 user user 70 Jul 30 14:37 file
$ \ls file
file
My research has ...
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What's the difference between test command and individual conditional expression surrounded by [[]]? [duplicate]
I am learning the zsh in the conditional expressions part, and I found some unreasonable output.
For example:
$ mkdir emptyspace && cd emptyspace
$ var_assigned_with_emptystring=""
$...
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dash: How can I quote the arguments ala "${(q+@)@}" in zsh?
I want to quote the arguments in dash (or sh, or even bash if that's not possible). I can do that with "${(q+@)@}" in zsh, such that reval <sth> ... is the same as just typing in <...
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What does " command do in terminal? [duplicate]
Recently, I opened terminal and started typing everything i can, after which i accidentally put " and something like python shell was initialised:
muhammadrasul@AMR:~/Desktop$ lksdflaflakd;kfa;lk&...
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bash while loop irritate with single quote
I have a few lines code.
I just want to check if argument $1 is in the file with a while loop so I write this code.
#!/bin/bash
if [ ! -z $1 ]
then
update=$1;
while read line
do
if ...
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1
answer
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What is the meaning of !"?
The command echo !" returns an error message. But the command echo "Hello!" succeeds. Is it correct to use the command echo "Hello!" ?
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Printing all lines between two strings, with one as a user input, using sed [duplicate]
I'm trying to use:
sed -n '/String1/,/String2/p' Filename
to print all lines between String1 and String2. Although I want to add String1 as a user input so,
read $userinput
sed -n '/$userinput/,/...
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UNIX KSH - Using double quotes or no quotes when assigning strings with wildcard to a variable?
I am new to UNIX and currently working on a shell script where I will be receiving files with names such as abc_123_date.zip so the file names will be abc_123_12312005. Instead of hardcoding abc_123_*....
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8
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awk print apostrophe/single quote
Can't figure out how to escape everything while using awk.
I need to enclose each input string with with single quotes, e.g.
input
string1
string2
string3
output
'string1'
'string2'
'string3'
Been ...
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How to execute function within double quotes?
I have these function:
#execute vim and then exit on err return
ve() {
vim "$@" || exit
}
export -f ve
#compile c source -> asm source in new tab in xfce terminal
casm() {
[ -z ${1} ] &&...
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Problem sending SMS text with a single quote character - mmcli (ModemManager)
This is an example from the mmcli manpage:
mmcli -m 0 --messaging-create-sms="text='Hello world',number='+1234567890'"
The details how it is parsed are unclear, the description says only --messaging-...
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2
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How can I define and use `alias` within `bash -c` with a one-line command?
I am trying to define and use alias within bash -c with a one-line command.
The command:
bash -c "eval $'df'"
works fine, but:
bash -c "eval $'alias df5=df\ndf5 -h'"
doesn't. Why, and how can I ...
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How to escape a "\" in command parameters [duplicate]
I have a command
path/to/forticlientsslvpn_cli --server <host>:<port> --vpnuser testpass\101
When I run the script, linux puts a space between testpass and 101. I want the script to see ...
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How to expand variable within a single-quoted argument?
I am trying to perform the following without luck:
SORT_BY='-k3,3r -k2,2 -k1,1r'
awk 'NR<4{print $0;next}{print $0 | sort '"${SORT_BY}"' -t"~"}'
I have tried with all sorts of quotes, unquote, ...
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sed bash script is unexpectedly replacing character with space instead of newline [duplicate]
Using bash command syntax:
echo "The*quick*brown*fox"|sed s/*/\\n/g
I get the desired output:
The
quick
brown
fox
However in script:
IN_TXT="The*quick*brown*fox"
OUT_TXT=$(echo $IN_TXT|sed s/*/\\...
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using awk to print backslash
I am having trouble printing (or searching) for sequences containing backslashes when using awk
For example -
echo "test\test" | awk '{ gsub(/\\\\t/, "\\\\&"); print }'
will give the result:
...
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Why does echo `ls -l` does not have newlines? [duplicate]
I am running WSL (Windows Subsystem for Linux) and when I use the ls -l function on the terminal, I get new lines printed i.e. each file is on a new line e.g.:
total 12K
drwxrwxrwx 1 user user 4.0K ...
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Output double quotes and variable
I'm writing a script to automate Let's Encrypt in PowerDNS,(this is a simple bash shell script to be run on debian)
Certbot runs and calls the script, feeding to it the variable:
$CERTBOT_VALIDATION
...
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I am confused with how to quote quotes
Hi I'm abolutely new to bash and coding in general.
I have this screen command that I want to execute. I am already running Minecraft console on the screen "ftb":
screen -S ftb -p 0 -X stuff "tellraw ...
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702
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Script not working when passed to bash via -c
Why does this work:
$ cat test.sh
#!/bin/bash
cat <(date|awk '{print $1}')
$ ./test.sh
Thu
but not as a command passed to bash:
$ bash -c "cat <(date|awk '{print $1}')"
Thu 2 Apr 2020 12:52:...
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Sed(?) is stripping backslash character from quote
I'm replacing a string with another string that includes escaped quotes:
echo "replace FOO" | sed -e "s~FOO~test\\\"test~g"
What I would expect is to see replace test\"test. Instead I see replace ...
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How can I parameterise my command in a bash script file?
Edit -- Not using bash $1 variables. Example is using field designators: $1, $2, $3 are the awk input record fields Unfortunately I did the example too quickly and mixed-up the example.
I believe ...
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Backticks evaluation problem in quoted command, in su -c, in heredoc, fed into 2 layers of ssh
I have the following chain of indirection:
ssh -t root@host1 ssh host2 << EOF\nsu - user2 -c 'kill `cat ~/file_with_pid`'\nEOF
In the end what I need is just to kill a process (reading the pid ...
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2
answers
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Globbing within a parameter expansion
I'm trying to select the files within a set of directories passed as arguments with the following:
${@/%/*}
However, this is not ideal, since paths with spaces will break, and quoting the parameter ...
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Quoting a command line argument containing a variable that may have both single and double quotes in its expansion
After some unsuccesful attempts at quoting the command string correctly, I ended up using the below command to run the identify command on the .jpg files under the working directory, the names of ...
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Find exec sh: Shell variable not getting passed to subshell
Here is a simplified code that prints the name of Directory if it contains a Filename with same name as the parent directory and .md extension.
FIND(){
find . -type d -exec sh -c '
for d ...
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echoing Command to cron.d
I am trying to append/echo a command to cron.d. However, when running the script that echoes the command:
echo */2 * * * * /usr/bin/aws ssm-send-command --document-name "AWS-RunShellScript" --...
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Utility to add quotes to argument
I have an issue which can be solved with utility to add quotes to argument and output to standard. I did a web seach for "linux utility to add quotes to argument" and found nothing relevant. Is there ...
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Single quote problem in "sh -c" script launched from "find"
Now I am writing a script for a long time, but lately this problem has drives me crazy. I tried everything but couldn't solve it.
find . -iname "*.mp4" -type f -exec ffmpeg -i "{}" -c:a "$ACODEC" -c:...
user386273
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1
answer
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Replacing '\'' with sed
I want to replace '\'' in a text file to another word or character using sed command.
Tried using sed "s/'\''/×/g" but it doesn't work.
Anyone know the solution?
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I received error "bash: line 1: [: -ne: unary operator expected" after run the below script
This script provides the expected output, but throw the error "bash: line 1: [: -ne: unary operator expected". Techies help to fix this.
#!/bin/bash
USR="root"
# Email
SUBJECT="NTP Service Status ...
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problem escaping quotes in script
I'm constructing a command line for use with the 'mogrify' tool [part of imagemagick]. the finalised command line looks something like this :
mogrify -stroke yellow -draw 'line 0,0 0,319' -draw 'line ...
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Bash ANSI C quoting not correctly quoting newlines
ANSI C Quoting in bash is supposed to read strings the same way C(or python with single quotes) would.
printf $'"Hello, World!\\n"'
#expected output (no newline, the slash is escaped)
"Hello, World!...
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What is the right way to quote nested parameter expansions?
When dealing with with nested parameter expansions, which of these is the correct way to quote things?
This one:
var="${var#"${var%%[![:space:]]*}"}"
Or this one:
var="${var#${var%%[![:space:]]*}}"...
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Quote a special character in a script file using awk
So I'm looking to write a script file which takes in a user-inputed number, and based off that number, it will execute a certain command. This command is the awk command that, of course, uses a field ...
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660
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how to use quotes in sed & ssh?
i cant get this to work in bash/rhel 7:
ssh host "sed -i -e \"s/dnl MASQUERADE_AS.*\$/MASQUERADE_AS(\`domain.com\')dnl/\" /etc/mail/sendmail.mc"
bash: -c: line 0: unexpected EOF while looking for ...
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1
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542
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Why do these rsync filter args fail in bash when passed in array?
Why does this rsync command work when I give it literally but not when I create it from variables?
Here are the variables - first the options I'm passing to rysnc, as an array:
$ echo "${options[@]}"...
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Is there a way to printf $@ verbatim?
I want to write a script that echoes to stdout its $@ verbatim, including any potential double-quotes, without a newline.
What I have tried:
> cat ./script1
#! /usr/bin/bash
printf "%s %s" $0 ...
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How can I pipe sed output to printf for formating?
I am using Tecplot to process wind tunnel data, but the input for Tecplot requires a specific format for variable specification; each variable is bracketed by double quotes "Variable Name". The ...
