[ILUG] Spaces in arguments in a bash for loop

[Kenn Humborg]

> niall at bagend:/tmp >for x in `grep ding fonts|grep -v TT|sed -e
> 's/ /*/g'`; do
> echo `echo $x|sed -e 's/*/ /g'`; done
> -ttf-webdings-medium-r-normal-regular-0-0-0-0-p-0-iso8859-1
> -ttf-wingdings-medium-r-normal-regular-0-0-0-0-p-0-iso8859-1
> -ttf-zapfdingbats bt-medium-r-normal-regular-0-0-0-0-p-0-iso8859-1
>
> but that sucks large hairy rocks (though I must say that I only
> just thought
> of it, and I'll use it in future unless one of you geniuses can
> come up with
> the 'right' answer)
>
> The bash man page is rather unhelpful. It says
>
> Bash performs the expansion by executing command and replacing the command
> substitution with the standard output of the command, with any trailing
> newlines deleted. Embedded newlines are not deleted, but they may
> be removed
> during word splitting.

I don't have a lot of time, but here are a few things to look at:

o  Try setting IFS (inter-field separator or something) to _not_
   include a space.  Then word splitting will not happen at spaces.
   Something like

      OLDIFS=$IFS IFS='\n' for i in `stuff with CR & spaces` ; do
         echo $i
      done
      IFS=$OLDIFS

   This doesn't work as-is...

o  use xargs -0.  Something like

       grep regex file | perl -e 'chop; print $_ "\000"' |
          xargs -0 cmd...

   Excuse the perl.  I don't know perl, but you should get the idea.

Later,
Kenn