[ILUG] Passing arguments containing spaces

[Liam O'Hagan]

On Fri, Dec 30, 2005 at 03:00:31PM +0000, kae verens wrote:


> try escaping the backslash as well:
> 
> command="mp3info -a \\\"Louis Armstrong\\\" -l \\\"The Essential Louis\\\" 
> -t \
>  \\\"Basin Street Blues\\\" \\\"Basin Street Blues.mp3\\\""
> 
> Kae


Hi Kae,

Thanks for the reply.

Perhaps I should have been more verbose in my original post.
The escaped characters in the example I gave were escaped double-quotes
so that my parameters would be quoted in the variable.

A more detailed example with a shorter command would probably be more helpful :

1. $ mp3info "Tiger Rag.mp3"  
   $ Tiger Rag.mp3 does not have an ID3 1.x tag.

   Perfect result.


2. $ command="mp3info \"Tiger Rag.mp3\""
   $ echo $command
   $ mp3info "Tiger Rag.mp3"

   As you can see, I've escaped the double quotes to replicate the command in 1.


3. $ $command
   $ Error opening MP3: "Tiger: No such file or directory
   $ Error opening MP3: Rag.mp3": No such file or directory

   bash has split the quoted parameter into two single-word parameters.


4. $ command="mp3info \"Tiger\\ Rag.mp3\""
   $ echo $command
   $ mp3info "Tiger\ Rag.mp3"

   I've escaped the space in the filename


5. $ $command
   $ Error opening MP3: "Tiger\: No such file or directory
   $ Error opening MP3: Rag.mp3": No such file or directory

   with no change in behaviour.


I had thought about renaming all the files to remove the spaces and replace
them with underscores, but I'd be left with the same problem trying to set the
artist name and album name.


I remain puzzled !



Regards,


Liam


-- 
Liam O'Hagan
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