How to escape double quotes in bash command

Question

I have the following command, which I am trying to append to my ~/.bash_profile:

echo 'alias N="cd $(pwd) && source ./bin/activate && cd new""

I want it to return echo:

alias N="cd /Users/david/Desktop/django2 && source ./bin/activate && cd new"

What would be the correct way to escape the pwd or quotes?

anubhava · Accepted Answer · 2018-10-04 15:38:58Z

This should work for you:

echo "alias N='cd $(pwd) && source ./bin/activate && cd new'"

However recommend you to use function instead of alias.

echo "N() { cd '$PWD' && source ./bin/activate && cd new; }"

Note use of $PWD instead of command pwd

bishop · Accepted Answer · 2018-10-04 15:40:52Z

To echo a literal " inside of a double-quoted string, use the escape character \:

echo "alias N=\"cd $(pwd) && source ./bin/activate && cd new\""

Outputs on my box:

alias N="cd /home/bishop/ && source ./bin/activate && cd new"

However, your use case suggests to me a function:

go() { local where where=${1:-${PWD}} cd "${where}" && source ./bin/activate && cd new }

that other guy · Accepted Answer · 2018-10-04 17:13:58Z

Avoid excessive escaping with a here document:

cat >> ~/.bash_profile << EOF alias N="cd $(pwd) && source ./bin/activate && cd new" EOF

3 Answers 3