Bash script variables acting strange

Question

So I have a bash script with a function that I call a few times. The first time its called it works as expected but any further calls give unexpected results

function doSomething(){
    objFiles="$(dirname "$1")/*.obj";
    for objFile in $objFiles;
    do
        echo "*****IN HERE***** - objfile is \"$objFile\"";
        check="${objFile: -9}";
        if [ $check == ".guid.obj" ]
        then
            echo "do nothing...";
        else
            echo "do something with obj file";
        fi;
    done
}

I pass in the path to a file in the same directory as the .obj files im looking for.

So the first time round this is what it outputs

+ objFiles='/usr/local/apache2/htdocs/uploads/3dmodels/2/47/zip test/*.obj'
+ for objFile in '$objFiles'
+ echo '*****IN HERE***** - objfile is "/usr/local/apache2/htdocs/uploads/3dmodels/2/47/zip test/test1.guid.obj"'
+ check=.guid.obj
+ '[' .guid.obj == .guid.obj ']'
+ echo 'do nothing...'

The second time round this is the output

+ objFiles='/usr/local/apache2/htdocs/uploads/3dmodels/2/47/zip test/*.obj'
+ for objFile in '$objFiles'
+ echo '*****IN HERE***** - objfile is "/usr/loc"'
+ check=
+ '[' == .guid.obj ']'
myShellScript.sh: line 142: [: ==: unary operator expected

The first time it finds the .obj file but the second time round all it gets it "/usr/loc"

any ideas?

Run your for loop like: for objFile in "$(dirname "$1")"/*.obj — anubhava
– anubhava, Commented Aug 14, 2014 at 16:07

konsolebox · Accepted Answer · 2014-08-14 16:09:52Z

2

It could be a bug somewhere with word splitting and/or pathname expansion. Try changing this:

objFiles="$(dirname "$1")/*.obj";
for objFile in $objFiles;

To this:

for objFile in "$(dirname "$1")"/*.obj

Or

objFiles=("$(dirname "$1")"/*.obj)
for objFile in "${objFiles[@]}"

answered Aug 14, 2014 at 16:09

konsolebox

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