[SOLVED] Bash command syntax, help, input filename with spaces No such file or directory

postcd · 04-01-2021, 07:09 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by shruggy

I'd do it with mapfile instead

thank you, it worked. I only replaced "select line" by "select i" as i am using variable $i later in the script.

shruggy · 04-01-2021, 07:29 AM

The select statement in Bash is nice, but rather limited. Anyway, you're OK as long as it covers your needs. For more precise and sophisticated menu control I'd rather use something like smenu, pick, or write my own menu handling function. I hesitate to recommend iselect as it is less flexible than smenu and was not updated in ages. OTOH, depending on your needs it's also could still be useful.

Some random thoughts.

Quote:

Originally Posted by postcd

IFS=$(echo -e '\n')

It's not needed for mapfile, but I want to comment on this nevertheless. You're using select which is a Bash-specific feature anyway. Bash has the ANSI-C quoting ($'string'). IFS=$'\n' is the usual Bash incantation for this. But even if you prefer to stay POSIX-conform, the right way to assign newline to IFS would be
Code:
```
IFS=${IFS#??}
```
This works because according to POSIX, the default value of IFS is <space><tab><newline> in this exact order.
Judging by your troubles to get this right, I'd suggest you read up on how to parse file names.
- First of all, the Bash Pitfall #1;
- further, the articles Why you shouldn't parse the output of ls(1), Quotes, IFS and Word Splitting from the same website;
- and lastly, two excellent (if rather longish) essays by David Wheeler: Fixing Unix/Linux/POSIX Filenames: Control Characters (such as Newline), Leading Dashes, and Other Problems and Filenames and Pathnames in Shell: How to do it Correctly.

MadeInGermany · 04-01-2021, 12:28 PM

Nothing against the bash-specific

Code:

  IFS=$'\n'

But already the old Bourne shell allowed a physical newline inside a 'string' or "string"

Code:

  IFS="
"

chrism01 · 04-06-2021, 01:22 AM

As per ScottieH

Quote:

Linux uses white-space as a word separator

so don't do that..

Seriously, unless you want to spend the rest of your programming life escaping spaces / quoting vars, which is tedious to type and painful to read, start by renaming the files .
Classically, substitute underscores for the spaces. After that, things will be much easier.

Also, use multiple lines for your code; don't try to jam it all on one line.
Again, it's hard to read and even harder to debug.