Using path with spaces in Shell script

Question

I am using shell script to call a java program. When calling passing java program I am passing -Dargument which has a path to a directory. This -D argument is read from a file. Now I am facing a issue when this path contains spaces. I tried with quote and also with escaping quotes but both dint work.

Here is my shell script code, test.sh

   D_ARG=`(tr '\r\n' ' ' < argument.dat)
  \#executing java code by passing above argument
   java ${D_ARG} TestProgram

Below is my argument file, argument.dat

  -Dargument1="/Path /To A/File"

When I set the echo on using set -x, I see the shell converting it to

  '-Dargument1="/Path' '/To' 'A/File"'

Where it adds single quotes when it encounters spaces and I get "/To" class not found exception. How to resolve this issue. Any suggestion or help will be really appreciable.

fge · Accepted Answer · 2013-01-11 12:27:18Z

2

Try this:

ARGS=

# Do nothing if there are no spaces; if there are spaces, surround with quotes
for arg in $(perl -pe '/ / or next; s/^/"/; s/$/"/' argument.dat); do
    ARGS="$ARGS $arg";
done

java $ARGS TestProgram

This basically has the effect that each time a line has a space in it, it will surround with quotes, so -Da=b c will be turned into "-Da=b c".

Note that "-Da=b c" is strictly equivalent to -Da="b c", or even more bizarre-looking forms of it:

'-Da='b\ c;
-D"a=b "c;
etc etc

The only thing which matters is that whatever characters are input field separators are escaped. Yes, this is legal:

alias l"l=ls"\ -l

edited Jan 11, 2013 at 12:27

answered Jan 11, 2013 at 11:16

fge

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3 Comments

Lolly Over a year ago

But if I have more than one argument defined in the argument.dat file, then both the arguments are considered as single string, since you have specified quotes for argument "${D_ARG}"

fge Over a year ago

You didn't tell that in the original question ;) In this case, your tr command is not the way to handle that.

Lolly Over a year ago

Thanks fge. I used eval command in front of "java" command (eval java ${D_ARG} TestProgram) which solved my problem. Thanks for you time.

anishsane · Accepted Answer · 2013-01-11 12:09:27Z

You may possibly escape the spaces in "/Path /To A/File". This is however not a good solution, because many a times, we may formulate a command like

system(argv[1]);/* Example is  C specific; 
      but you understand the loop-hole imparted by single escaping.
      You may require multilevel escaping, based on your implementation. OR
      We may have to escape the string, every time it is dereferenced.
      */

Better options on linux systems is to create a symbolic link.

ln -s "/Path /To A/File" /tmp/file

& then in argument file, use -Dargument1="/tmp/file"
Use this approach, if there is only one file "/Path /To A/File" in question.

Another approach is using mount --bind

mkdir /tmp/myfiles && mount --bind "/Path /To A" /tmp/myfiles

& then in argument file, use -Dargument1="/tmp/myfiles/File"
This approach would mount "/Path /To A" to /tmp/myfiles. All the files & directory structure in it will be retained.

halfer · Accepted Answer · 2024-03-02 22:14:29Z

0

The script worked when used with the command eval, which preserves quotes and it didn't add any additional single quotes.

  D_ARG=`(tr '\r\n' ' ' < argument.dat)
 \#executing java code by passing above argument
  eval java ${D_ARG} TestProgram

edited Mar 2, 2024 at 22:14

halfer

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answered Jan 11, 2013 at 16:34

Lolly

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