How to pass a variable containing space in bash as a loop argument?

Question

good day, I am creating a script to read one level of subfolders/directories of a path. The script is like so:

#loopdir.sh
for i in `ls -d $1`
do
echo $i
done

But when I tried to use it to read /media/My\ Passport/, it reads the argument as two different dirs:

$ ./loopdir.sh /media/My\ Passport/
ls: cannot access /media/My: No such file or directory
Passport/

Thank you @kepinpin for un-accepting my wrong answer. Now, I can delete it... :-) — anishsane
– anishsane, Commented Feb 19, 2016 at 14:22

Gilles Quénot · Accepted Answer · 2013-02-28 13:49:49Z

5

Try doing this instead (my understanding is that you want to list subdirs, Am I right?) :

for i in "$1"/*; do
    echo "${i%/}"
done

Parsing ls output is a bad idea : it's is a tool for interactively looking at file information. Its output is formatted for humans and will cause bugs in scripts. Use globs or find instead. Understand why: http://mywiki.wooledge.org/ParsingLs

And (last but not least) : USE MORE QUOTES! They are vital. Also, learn the difference between ' and " and `. See http://mywiki.wooledge.org/Quotes and http://wiki.bash-hackers.org/syntax/words

edited Feb 28, 2013 at 13:49

answered Feb 28, 2013 at 9:11

Gilles Quénot

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1 Comment

L0j1k Over a year ago

I want to second this consideration of parsing ls. It is widely known for containing black magic that can break what you are doing.

L0j1k · Accepted Answer · 2013-02-28 08:55:53Z

1

You need to surround your $i with quotes: echo "$i"

answered Feb 28, 2013 at 8:55

L0j1k

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5 Comments

kepinpin Over a year ago

sorry, I've just tried it, no dice. The output is still: ls: cannot access /media/My: No such file or directory Passport/

L0j1k Over a year ago

Why the backslash in your filename?

L0j1k Over a year ago

This is going to bother me all night.

anishsane Over a year ago

There is no backslash in filename. It has been added by bash, to escape space between My & Passport.

chepner Over a year ago

Quoting won't help, as there's nothing that needs to be quoted in $1; the space is used by the shell for wordsplitting before $i's value is set.

Yueyoum · Accepted Answer · 2013-02-28 09:32:46Z

0

don't $i

this will break by space

using "$i"

answered Feb 28, 2013 at 9:32

Yueyoum

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1 Comment

chepner Over a year ago

It's too late to quote the variable after you try to iterate over the ouptut of ls.

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