/bin/sh quoting problems

[Carpetsmoker]

Can anyone explain to me why this doesn't work?

#!/bin/sh

#PS4=">>>> "
#set -xv

var="'This is label'"
ls  ${var}

[~/]% ./test.sh
ls: cannot access 'This: No such file or directory
ls: cannot access is: No such file or directory
ls: cannot access label': No such file or directory

From commandline (/bin/sh):

sh-4.2$ ls 'This is label'
This is label

I'm confused ... ... Turning on set -xv only served to increase my confusion

[~]% ./test.sh

var="'This is label'"
>>>> var=''\''This is label'\'''
ls  ${var}
>>>> ls ''\''This' is 'label'\'''
ls: cannot access 'This: No such file or directory
ls: cannot access is: No such file or directory
ls: cannot access label': No such file or directory
Exit 2

Where did all those quotes come from ?

The larger picture:

I want to build a variable with arguments for (c)dialog, i.e.:
# dialog --menu 'Hello world' 10 40 9 "This is Label" "This is text "

If I put "This is label" "This is text" inside a variable it doesn't work ...

(Of course, the real script has many more menu entries... )

[graudeejs]

Well it's simply wrong....
You need to surround ${var} with quotes, when you ls

ls "${var}"

[Carpetsmoker]

That works only for a single argument, not multiple:

var='This is label'
ls "${var}" # Works

var='This is label' 'This is text'
ls "${var}" # Oh noes!

What I need to have is something along the lines of:
# cdialog --menu 'Hello World' 10 40 9 'I am Label' 'I am Text' 'Another label' 'More text'

... Where the highlighted text should be ${var} ...

From the commandline this gives me:

┌──────────────────────────────────────┐
│ Hello World                          │
│ ┌──────────────────────────────────┐ │
│ │     I am Label     I am Text     │ │
│ │     Another label  More text     │ │
│ │                                  │ │
│ └──────────────────────────────────┘ │
├──────────────────────────────────────┤
│       <  OK  >    <Cancel>           │
└──────────────────────────────────────┘

If I wouldn't quote anything, then every word would be a label/text ... :-|

It sounds silly, but putting 'I am Label' 'I am Text' 'Another label' 'More text' inside of ${var} has kept both myself and a coworker busy for quite some time (With no resolution so far)...

[graudeejs]

sh isn't even close to perfect for text processing


Sorry, I can't help, cause I don't see the picture

[J65nko]

j65nko@hercules[~]cat dialog

var="\"This is label\" \"This is text\""
echo ${var}

j65nko@hercules[~]sh dialog
"This is label" "This is text"

[Carpetsmoker]

j65nko:

Yes, this works when echoing, but not with cdialog:

[~]% cat test.sh
#!/bin/sh

var="\"I am Label\" \"I am Text\""

cdialog --menu 'Hello World' 10 40 9 ${var}

echo ${var}

[~]% sh test.sh
┌──────────────────────────────────────┐
│ Hello World                          │
│ ┌──────────────────────────────────┐ │
│ │          "I      am              │ │
│ │          Label"  "I              │ │
│ │          am      Text"           │ │
│ └──────────────────────────────────┘ │
├──────────────────────────────────────┤
│       <  OK  >    <Cancel>           │
└──────────────────────────────────────┘

"I am Label" "I am Text"

cdialog weirdness or cdialog weirdness? I suspect sh weirdness ...

@graudeejs Other tools aren't available in this environment and are not an solution in this case. Trust me, if it would be, I would use them.

[Carpetsmoker]

More prodding about produced this, which seems to work. The tip came from this old stackoverflow question, I'm still confused about what's going on though

#!/bin/sh

cmd="cdialog --menu 'Hello World' 10 40 9 "

list="I am Label|I am Text
hello world|foo bar"
IFS="
"
for arg in ${list}; do
  label=$(echo ${arg} | cut -d '|' -f 1)
  text=$(echo ${arg} | cut -d '|' -f 2)

  cmd="${cmd} '${label}' '${text}'"
done

#echo ${cmd}
eval ${cmd}