How to pass argument with spaces to a shell script function? [duplicate]

Question

I'm trying to pass multiple argument to a function, but one of them is consist of two words and I want shell function to deal with it as one arg:

args=("$@")
function(){
 echo ${args[0]}
 echo ${args[1]}
 echo ${args[2]}
}

when I call this command sh shell hi hello guys bye

I get this

hi

hello

guys

But what I really want is:

hi 
hello guys
bye

You shouldn't use function as a name of a function. It's a keyword in ksh, and some bourne-shell like bash, zsh, dash. — cuonglm
– cuonglm, Commented Aug 23, 2014 at 18:31
@Gnouc. Not in dash. In yash yes. Though zsh also accepts ksh's function definition syntax, function() echo x; function will work in zsh. So the only shells where that is a problem are ksh, bash and yash. — Stéphane Chazelas
– Stéphane Chazelas, Commented Aug 23, 2014 at 20:05
@StéphaneChazelas: Oh, I retry and it works in zsh, but dash doesn't. — cuonglm
– cuonglm, Commented Aug 23, 2014 at 20:13

sillyMunky · Accepted Answer · 2014-08-23 18:28:48Z

36

You should just quote the second argument.

myfunc(){
        echo "$1"
        echo "$2"
        echo "$3"
}

myfunc hi "hello guys" bye

answered Aug 23, 2014 at 18:28

sillyMunky

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ctrl-alt-delor · Accepted Answer · 2021-03-07 10:28:58Z

19

It is the same as calling anything (a shell script, a C program, a python program, …) from a shell

If calling from any Unix shell, and the parameter has spaces, then you need to quote it.

sh my-shell-script hi "hello guys" bye

You can also use single quotes, these are more powerful. They stop the shell from interpreting anything ($, !, \, *, ", etc, except ')

sh my-shell-script hi 'hello guys' bye

You should also quote every variable used within the function/script.

Note that in your example the arguments are falling apart before they get to the function (as they are passed to the script).

#!/bin/sh
my_procedure{
   echo "$1"
   echo "$2"
   echo "$3"
}
my_procedure("$@")

There is no way to do it automatically, in the script, as there is no way for the script to know which spaces are which (which words are together).

answered Aug 23, 2014 at 18:22

ctrl-alt-delor

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2 Answers 2