Bash command escaping quotes

Question

I have the following bash snippet:

#as long as we read invalid stuff prompt the user REPLY= until [[ $REPLY =~ ^[YyNn]$ ]]; do read -p "Want to generate an Eclipse CDT4 Project? [y/n]" -n 1 -r echo # (optional) move to a new line done PROJARGS= if [[ $REPLY =~ ^[Yy]$ ]] then PROJARGS='-G "Eclipse CDT4 - Unix Makefiles" -DCMAKE_ECLIPSE_GENERATE_SOURCE_PROJECT=TRUE' fi cmake $PROJARGS -D CMAKE_BUILD_TYPE=$BUILD_TYPE ../src

Basically, I want to set additional $PROJARGS arguments whenever the user hits y.

However, the last port does not work since there are some quotes inserted, that i do not want to be there. Using set -x i found out that the following happens:

+ PROJARGS='-G "Eclipse CDT4 - Unix Makefiles" -DCMAKE_ECLIPSE_GENERATE_SOURCE_PROJECT=TRUE' + cmake -G '"Eclipse' CDT4 - Unix 'Makefiles"' -DCMAKE_ECLIPSE_GENERATE_SOURCE_PROJECT=TRUE -D CMAKE_BUILD_TYPE=Release ../src CMake Error: Could not create named generator "Eclipse

So there are additional quotes inserted. I have no idea why. How do i prevent this?

gniourf_gniourf · Accepted Answer · 2015-02-21 16:04:37Z

Don't put your arguments into a string! use an array!

projargs=() if [[ $REPLY = [Yy] ]]; then projargs=( -G "Eclipse CDT4 - Unix Makefiles" -DCMAKE_ECLIPSE_GENERATE_SOURCE_PROJECT=TRUE ) fi

(note I lowercased your variable, as uppercase variable names are considered bad practice in shell programming!).

Then use as:

cmake "${projargs[@]}" -D CMAKE_BUILD_TYPE="$BUILD_TYPE" ../src

(note the quotes).

As a sidenote, you don't need regexes here. A glob is enough:

until [[ $REPLY = [YyNn] ]]; do ...

More info and good practice in BashFAQ/050.

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