[SOLVED] Bash: Problem with Escaping the Space Character

ghborrmann · 07-07-2016, 11:27 AM

In a bash script, I have the command:

Code:

ls -l --time-style=+'%y/%m/%d %H:%M:%S'

which works perfectly. I have tried to put all the options into a bash variable, but can't get ls to work that way:

Code:

options="-l --time-style=+'%y/%m/%d %H:%M:%S'"
ls $options
ls: cannot access '%H:%M:%S': No such file or directory

I have tried escaping the space character, with no effect. How can I get this to work?

hydrurga · 07-07-2016, 12:21 PM

Try this:

Code:

options=(-l --time-style=+'%y/%m/%d %H:%M:%S')
ls "${options[@]}"

Don't ask why it works - I don't know.

I was just intrigued by your question, found the following thread, and played around a little with the arrays option:

http://unix.stackexchange.com/questi...ial-characters

Hopefully, someone else will elucidate...

ghborrmann · 07-07-2016, 12:37 PM

Works like a charm! Thanks!

john2 · 07-07-2016, 12:39 PM

I was intrigued too. The only way I could find is to use eval:

Code:

options="-l --time-style=+'%y/%m/%d %H:%M:%S'"
eval "ls" $options

hydrurga's way looks neater though

. It probably works by avoiding double quotes - backslash within double quotes only works as escape character when followed by ‘$’, ‘`’, ‘"’, ‘\’, or newline. See here:https://www.gnu.org/software/bash/ma...le-Quotes.html

Edit: The quotes around ls are optional.

hydrurga · 07-07-2016, 12:40 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by ghborrmann

Works like a charm! Thanks!

Nice. That page I linked to makes very interesting reading too.

Can you mark this thread as "Solved" please? Cheers.

keefaz · 07-07-2016, 05:58 PM

Another way is to alias ls, like

Code:

alias lstime='ls -l --time-style=+"%y/%m/%d %H:%M:%S"'