[SOLVED] file path contains space

sumeet inani · 02-28-2010, 03:40 AM

I use gnome-terminal in ubuntu 8.04 . It is bash .

#cp "/data/sumeet/linux/ubuntu 8.04/xorg-dev/*.deb" ~/installed
cp: cannot stat `/data/sumeet/linux/ubuntu 8.04/xorg-dev/*.deb': No such file or directory

If I remove double quotes & replace space in folder path by \space then it works fine
#cp /data/sumeet/linux/ubuntu\ 8.04/xorg-dev/*.deb ~/installed
#

(1)Does this mean that * is not expanded in string ? How can I make terminal interpret the * as wild card when * is in double quotes ?

colucix · 02-28-2010, 03:59 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by sumeet inani

Does this mean that * is not expanded in string ? How can I make terminal interpret the * as wild card when * is in double quotes ?

You can't. The literal meaning of * is preserved inside double quotes. From the Bash reference manual:

Quote:

Enclosing characters in double quotes (‘"’) preserves the literal value of all characters within the quotes, with the exception of ‘$’, ‘`’, ‘\’, and, when history expansion is enabled, ‘!’.

From the command line, you can always try TAB completion to automatically escape the blank space and spare typing.

i92guboj · 02-28-2010, 04:08 AM

You can do

Code:

cp /foo/moo\ cow/*.bar
# or
cp "/foo/moo cow/"*.bar
# or just
cp /foo/moo" "cow/*.bar

Read the bash man page if you want to know more about quoting and special characters.

sumeet inani · 03-02-2010, 01:49 AM

Thank You i92guboj
i ran
$cp "/data/sumeet/linux/ubuntu 8.04/xorg-dev/"*.deb ~
It worked as desired.That is what I was looking for.
Though I couldn't express my question clearly.
This allows me to copy location from address bar of file manager and using it as it is.