Search icon CANCEL
Arrow left icon
Explore Products
Best Sellers
New Releases
Books
Videos
Audiobooks
Learning Hub
Conferences
Free Learning
Arrow right icon
Arrow up icon
GO TO TOP
Bash Quick Start Guide

You're reading from   Bash Quick Start Guide Get up and running with shell scripting with Bash

Arrow left icon
Product type Paperback
Published in Sep 2018
Publisher Packt
ISBN-13 9781789538830
Length 186 pages
Edition 1st Edition
Languages
Tools
Arrow right icon
Author (1):
Arrow left icon
Tom Ryder Tom Ryder
Author Profile Icon Tom Ryder
Tom Ryder
Arrow right icon
View More author details
Toc

Table of Contents (10) Chapters Close

Preface 1. What is Bash? FREE CHAPTER 2. Bash Command Structure 3. Essential Commands 4. Input, Output, and Redirection 5. Variables and Patterns 6. Loops and Conditionals 7. Scripts, Functions, and Aliases 8. Best Practices 9. Other Books You May Enjoy

Quoting correctly

It can't be over-emphasized how important it is to wrap expansions, such as $myvar, ${myvar[1]}, and ${myvar##*/}, in double quotes. Failing to do this will lead to bugs down the line when values contain characters that have special meaning to Bash, especially spaces. This is a common problem with code that has been cut and pasted from old documentation, or from bad advice posted on websites or in chat channels.

It only takes a few examples to realize how dangerous a failure to quote properly can be, especially in circumstances where files can be created by other users, and hence might include shell metacharacters. A file named *, for example, is legal, and if expanded incorrectly, can wreak havoc on your scripts:

$ cd ~/important
$ myfilename='*'
$ echo $myfilename
important-document  passwords-DO-NOT-DELETE  anniversary-plans
$ echo "$myfilename...
lock icon The rest of the chapter is locked
Register for a free Packt account to unlock a world of extra content!
A free Packt account unlocks extra newsletters, articles, discounted offers, and much more. Start advancing your knowledge today.
Unlock this book and the full library FREE for 7 days
Get unlimited access to 7000+ expert-authored eBooks and videos courses covering every tech area you can think of
Renews at €18.99/month. Cancel anytime