Bash Space-Separated (e.g., --option argument
)
cat >/tmp/demo-space-separated.sh <<'EOF'
#!/bin/bash
POSITIONAL=()
while [[ $# -gt 0 ]]; do
key="$1"
case $key in
-e|--extension)
EXTENSION="$2"
shift # past argument
shift # past value
;;
-s|--searchpath)
SEARCHPATH="$2"
shift # past argument
shift # past value
;;
-l|--lib)
LIBPATH="$2"
shift # past argument
shift # past value
;;
--default)
DEFAULT=YES
shift # past argument
;;
*) # unknown option
POSITIONAL+=("$1") # save it in an array for later
shift # past argument
;;
esac
done
set -- "${POSITIONAL[@]}" # restore positional parameters
echo "FILE EXTENSION = ${EXTENSION}"
echo "SEARCH PATH = ${SEARCHPATH}"
echo "LIBRARY PATH = ${LIBPATH}"
echo "DEFAULT = ${DEFAULT}"
echo "Number files in SEARCH PATH with EXTENSION:" $(ls -1 "${SEARCHPATH}"/*."${EXTENSION}" | wc -l)
if [[ -n $1 ]]; then
echo "Last line of file specified as non-opt/last argument:"
tail -1 "$1"
fi
EOF
chmod +x /tmp/demo-space-separated.sh
/tmp/demo-space-separated.sh -e conf -s /etc -l /usr/lib /etc/hosts
Output from copy-pasting the block above
FILE EXTENSION = conf
SEARCH PATH = /etc
LIBRARY PATH = /usr/lib
DEFAULT =
Number files in SEARCH PATH with EXTENSION: 14
Last line of file specified as non-opt/last argument:
#93.184.216.34 example.com
Usage
demo-space-separated.sh -e conf -s /etc -l /usr/lib /etc/hosts
Bash Equals-Separated (e.g., --option=argument
)
cat >/tmp/demo-equals-separated.sh <<'EOF'
#!/bin/bash
for i in "$@"; do
case $i in
-e=*|--extension=*)
EXTENSION="${i#*=}"
shift # past argument=value
;;
-s=*|--searchpath=*)
SEARCHPATH="${i#*=}"
shift # past argument=value
;;
-l=*|--lib=*)
LIBPATH="${i#*=}"
shift # past argument=value
;;
--default)
DEFAULT=YES
shift # past argument with no value
;;
*)
# unknown option
;;
esac
done
echo "FILE EXTENSION = ${EXTENSION}"
echo "SEARCH PATH = ${SEARCHPATH}"
echo "LIBRARY PATH = ${LIBPATH}"
echo "DEFAULT = ${DEFAULT}"
echo "Number files in SEARCH PATH with EXTENSION:" $(ls -1 "${SEARCHPATH}"/*."${EXTENSION}" | wc -l)
if [[ -n $1 ]]; then
echo "Last line of file specified as non-opt/last argument:"
tail -1 $1
fi
EOF
chmod +x /tmp/demo-equals-separated.sh
/tmp/demo-equals-separated.sh -e=conf -s=/etc -l=/usr/lib /etc/hosts
Output from copy-pasting the block above
FILE EXTENSION = conf
SEARCH PATH = /etc
LIBRARY PATH = /usr/lib
DEFAULT =
Number files in SEARCH PATH with EXTENSION: 14
Last line of file specified as non-opt/last argument:
#93.184.216.34 example.com
Usage
demo-equals-separated.sh -e=conf -s=/etc -l=/usr/lib /etc/hosts
To better understand ${i#*=}
search for "Substring Removal" in this guide. It is functionally equivalent to `sed 's/[^=]*=//' <<< "$i"`
which calls a needless subprocess or `echo "$i" | sed 's/[^=]*=//'`
which calls two needless subprocesses.
Using bash with getopt[s]
getopt(1) limitations (older, relatively-recent getopt
versions):
- can't handle arguments that are empty strings
- can't handle arguments with embedded whitespace
More recent getopt
versions don't have these limitations. For more information, see these docs.
POSIX getopts
Additionally, the POSIX shell and others offer getopts
which doen't have these limitations. I've included a simplistic getopts
example.
cat >/tmp/demo-getopts.sh <<'EOF'
#!/bin/sh
# A POSIX variable
OPTIND=1 # Reset in case getopts has been used previously in the shell.
# Initialize our own variables:
output_file=""
verbose=0
while getopts "h?vf:" opt; do
case "$opt" in
h|\?)
show_help
exit 0
;;
v) verbose=1
;;
f) output_file=$OPTARG
;;
esac
done
shift $((OPTIND-1))
[ "${1:-}" = "--" ] && shift
echo "verbose=$verbose, output_file='$output_file', Leftovers: $@"
EOF
chmod +x /tmp/demo-getopts.sh
/tmp/demo-getopts.sh -vf /etc/hosts foo bar
Output from copy-pasting the block above
verbose=1, output_file='/etc/hosts', Leftovers: foo bar
Usage
demo-getopts.sh -vf /etc/hosts foo bar
The advantages of getopts
are:
- It's more portable, and will work in other shells like
dash
.
- It can handle multiple single options like
-vf filename
in the typical Unix way, automatically.
The disadvantage of getopts
is that it can only handle short options (-h
, not --help
) without additional code.
There is a getopts tutorial which explains what all of the syntax and variables mean. In bash, there is also help getopts
, which might be informative.
A simple answer is:
echo " lol " | xargs
Xargs will do the trimming for you. It's one command/program, no parameters, returns the trimmed string, easy as that!
Note: this doesn't remove all internal spaces so "foo bar"
stays the same; it does NOT become "foobar"
. However, multiple spaces will be condensed to single spaces, so "foo bar"
will become "foo bar"
. In addition it doesn't remove end of lines characters.
Best Answer
You cannot have spaces around the
=
sign.When you write:
bash tries to run a command named
STR
with 2 arguments (the strings=
andfoo
)When you write:
bash tries to run a command named
STR
with 1 argument (the string=foo
)When you write:
bash tries to run the command
foo
with STR set to the empty string in its environment.I'm not sure if this helps to clarify or if it is mere obfuscation, but note that:
STR "=" "foo"
,STR "=foo"
,STR="" foo
.The relevant section of the sh language spec, section 2.9.1 states:
In that context, a
word
is the command that bash is going to run. Any string containing=
(in any position other than at the beginning of the string) which is not a redirection and in which the portion of the string before the=
is a valid variable name is a variable assignment, while any string that is not a redirection or a variable assignment is a command. InSTR = "foo"
,STR
is not a variable assignment.