say we have:
test() {
echo $1
echo $2
}
and two variables:
a="hello world"
b="$a blabla.."
test $b
it displays:
hello
world
what I want is:
hello world
blabla..
How can I achieve this?
Thanks
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I'm not a shell expert, but can't you just do echo $1, $2Arash Saidi– Arash Saidi2014-05-14 09:04:35 +00:00Commented May 14, 2014 at 9:04
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@ArashSaidi if I do echo $1, $2 in test(), I get 'hello, world'. But What I want is 'hello world, blabla..'haohaolee– haohaolee2014-05-14 09:07:03 +00:00Commented May 14, 2014 at 9:07
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2 Answers
Use this:
a="hello world"
b="'$a' blabla"
eval "test $b"
The single-quotes are needed to keep hello world together as a single argument. Then you need to use eval because quotes are not normally processed after variable expansion.
3 Comments
chepner
You should only use
eval if your shell does not support arrays (for instance, you require POSIX compatibility).
Barmar
It depends on where the values are coming from, and how they're being put together into the variable.
chepner
It seems that if you have the ability to control the format of
b, you also have the ability to make b an array instead. I'm not sure what other situation would preclude the use of an array.You want b to be an array, otherwise there's no way with a single string containing whitespace to determine which space char is the separator:
mytest() {
echo "$1"
echo "$2"
}
a="hello world"
b=( "$a" "blah blah" )
mytest "${b[@]}"
hello world
blah blah
