Actually, you'll usually want to use "
$@".
It expands to the entire list of arguments, and when quoted each argument is treated as
a separate element. This is the behavior you'll usually want when running loops and passing the arguments to other commands.
"
$*", on the other hand, expands to the entire list of arguments as
a single text string. You'll only want to use this in certain printing and testing situations.
Note that the quotes are important for protecting the contents against shell word-splitting in either case, so never forget to quote.
http://mywiki.wooledge.org/Arguments
http://mywiki.wooledge.org/WordSplitting
http://mywiki.wooledge.org/Quotes
The "
@" and "
*" values work the same way when used as
array indexes as well.
