Trying to create a scp command in bash

Question

I am trying to create a simple bash script that takes paths to directories as input and plugs them into an scp command. The scp command looks like this:

scp [email protected]:/path/to/directory/on/server /path/to/directory/on/local/machine

I have made a simple bash function,

s2h () {
    local address_in_server="$1"
    local address_in_home="$2"
    echo "$address_in_server"
    echo "$address_in_home"
    scp [email protected]:$address_in_server $address_in_home
}

After running this script as s2h ~/testing/somefile.txt ~/Desktop The echo commands output

/Users/me/testing
/Users/me/Desktop/

This particular pathway, with /Users/me is meant for my local machine. The problem is that bash is interpreting the "~" for the server as the "~" for my local machine. If I enter

s2h /home/myusername/testing/somefile.txt ~/Desktop

It works perfectly.

However, the command

scp [email protected]:~/testing/somefile.txt ~/Desktop

also works.

My question is, how do I get the bash script to understand what ~ means when calling a file from my server from an argument, and not translate it to the local meaning of ~?

Just invoke it like s2h testing/somefile.txt ~/Desktop -- the remote file will be found relative to your remote home directory. — glenn jackman
– glenn jackman, Commented Feb 7, 2021 at 15:35

Cyrus · Accepted Answer · 2021-02-07 05:05:29Z

3

Use quotes to suppress local tilde expansion:

s2h "~/testing/somefile.txt" ~/Desktop

answered Feb 7, 2021 at 5:05

Cyrus

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2 Comments

megamence Over a year ago

Thank you @Cyrus. This worked. Is there a way to do it in the bash function itself? want to make the user interface as simple as possible. i want it to work with s2h ~/testing/somefile.txt ~/Desktop

Cyrus Over a year ago

It might help to replace in your code "$1" with "${1/#$HOME/\~}" to get back your ~.

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