I'm writing a bash script where I need to pass a string containing spaces to a function in my bash script.
For example:
#!/bin/bash
myFunction
{
echo $1
echo $2
echo $3
}
myFunction "firstString" "second string with spaces" "thirdString"
When run, the output I'd expect is:
firstString
second string with spaces
thirdString
However, what's actually output is:
firstString
second
string
Is there a way to pass a string with spaces as a single argument to a function in bash?
you should put quotes and also, your function declaration is wrong.
myFunction()
{
echo "$1"
echo "$2"
echo "$3"
}
And like the others, it works for me as well. Tell us what version of shell you are using.
Another solution to the issue above is to set each string to a variable, call the function with variables denoted by a literal dollar sign \$. Then in the function use eval to read the variable and output as expected.
#!/usr/bin/ksh
myFunction()
{
eval string1="$1"
eval string2="$2"
eval string3="$3"
echo "string1 = ${string1}"
echo "string2 = ${string2}"
echo "string3 = ${string3}"
}
var1="firstString"
var2="second string with spaces"
var3="thirdString"
myFunction "\${var1}" "\${var2}" "\${var3}"
exit 0
Output is then:
string1 = firstString
string2 = second string with spaces
string3 = thirdString
In trying to solve a similar problem to this, I was running into the issue of UNIX thinking my variables were space delimeted. I was trying to pass a pipe delimited string to a function using awk to set a series of variables later used to create a report. I initially tried the solution posted by ghostdog74 but could not get it to work as not all of my parameters were being passed in quotes. After adding double-quotes to each parameter it then began to function as expected.
Below is the before state of my code and fully functioning after state.
Before - Non Functioning Code
#!/usr/bin/ksh
#*******************************************************************************
# Setup Function To Extract Each Field For The Error Report
#*******************************************************************************
getField(){
detailedString="$1"
fieldNumber=$2
# Retrieves Column ${fieldNumber} From The Pipe Delimited ${detailedString}
# And Strips Leading And Trailing Spaces
echo ${detailedString} | awk -F '|' -v VAR=${fieldNumber} '{ print $VAR }' | sed 's/^[ \t]*//;s/[ \t]*$//'
}
while read LINE
do
var1="$LINE"
# Below Does Not Work Since There Are Not Quotes Around The 3
iputId=$(getField "${var1}" 3)
done<${someFile}
exit 0
After - Functioning Code
#!/usr/bin/ksh
#*******************************************************************************
# Setup Function To Extract Each Field For The Report
#*******************************************************************************
getField(){
detailedString="$1"
fieldNumber=$2
# Retrieves Column ${fieldNumber} From The Pipe Delimited ${detailedString}
# And Strips Leading And Trailing Spaces
echo ${detailedString} | awk -F '|' -v VAR=${fieldNumber} '{ print $VAR }' | sed 's/^[ \t]*//;s/[ \t]*$//'
}
while read LINE
do
var1="$LINE"
# Below Now Works As There Are Quotes Around The 3
iputId=$(getField "${var1}" "3")
done<${someFile}
exit 0