I'm making a generic bash script whose input $1 is file pattern that it wants to iter through. Right now I have
for entry in ./$1; do
echo "$entry"
done
but when I run this, I get
$ ./stuff.sh PRM*
./PRM.EDTOUT.ZIP
although there are many files of pattern PRM*. Is there a way to specify this pattern in the command line args and list correctly all files of the same pattern?
When you call ./stuff.sh PRM*, PRM* is expanded by the shell to the matching files.
If you want to pass the pattern without expansion, then you have to quote it:
./stuff.sh 'PRM*'
But actually, it will be better to just let the shell expand it (don't quote it, use it as in your example), but change your script to take multiple arguments, like this:
for entry; do
echo "$entry"
done
That's right, there is no "in" after for entry. None needed.
The for loop uses the positional parameters by default in the absence of an "in" clause.
In other words, the above is equivalent to this:
for entry in "$@"; do
echo "$entry"
done
./stuff.sh PRM* is limited in size; if the pattern matches too many files, you'll get a "Argument list too long" error. bash built-in commands, like the for loop, aren't subject to that limit. Compare echo {1..100000} with /bin/echo {1..100000} to see the difference. (Depending on your system, a larger upper bound may be sufficient, or you may need to increase it.)
for entry do without a semi-colon. See stackoverflow.com/questions/36896830/…
./stuff.sh PRM*, bash will expand the glob and run./stuff.sh PRM.EDTOUT.ZIP PRM.other.matches.zip. Your script never sees the pattern, it should just loop over all the arguments (for entry in "$@"; do ..or justfor entry; do)./stuff.sh "PRM*". You can also change your script to be a single line:ls $1but you'll still have to quote your input so it doesn't get expanded before the script gets ahold of it.