topic Inserting \ character in a string passed to another command in Operating System - HP-UX

Inserting \ character in a string passed to another command

Rui Vilao — Fri, 10 Oct 2003 04:24:00 GMT

Greetings,

I have a shell script that receives a command line and executes a remote shell and passes the command string as argument.

Content of shell script:

cmd=$1
remsh host1 -l user1 -n "export DISPLAY=$DISPLAY;/opt/app/xpto.sh $cmd

This executes:

remsh host1 -l user1 -n "export DISPLAY=$DISPLAY;/opt/app/xpto.sh xpto (12)

When executing, I get the error:

I get the error

sh: Syntax error at line 1 : `(' is not expected.

I am trying to insert some \ character before the ( character but without success:

parsed_cmd=`echo $cmd | sed "s/(/\\0050/g" | sed "s/(/\(/g"`

Any help/suggestion is highly appreciated.
TIA.

Kind Regards,

Rui.

Re: Inserting \ character in a string passed to another command

Graham Cameron_1 — Fri, 10 Oct 2003 05:15:26 GMT

echo $cmd|sed -e "s/(/\\\$/" -e "s/)/\\\$/"
-- Graham

Re: Inserting \ character in a string passed to another command

Rui Vilao — Fri, 10 Oct 2003 05:35:21 GMT

Graham,

Thanks for your suggestion.

The problem is if you have this within a script it will fail:

In script:

remsh host1 -l user1 -n "export DISPLAY=$DISPLAY;echo $parsed_cmd"

It returns:

ksh: syntax error at line 1 : `(' unexpected

TIA,

Rui.

Re: Inserting \ character in a string passed to another command

Mark Grant — Fri, 10 Oct 2003 05:49:59 GMT

I'm still struggling to understand exactly what you are trying to do here but it is a Friday!

If I understand you correctly I would have though enclosing $cmd in " marks might help. You might need to enclose it with \" if being part of the remsh though.

Re: Inserting \ character in a string passed to another command

Graham Cameron_1 — Fri, 10 Oct 2003 06:05:03 GMT

Looks ok to me...
--
#PS1="# "
# cmd="xpto (12)"
# parsed_cmd=$(echo $cmd|sed -e "s/(/\\\$/" -e "s/)/\\\$/")
# echo $parsed_cmd
xpto $12$
# remsh crimple "echo $parsed_cmd"
xpto (12)
#
--
-- Graham

Re: Inserting \ character in a string passed to another command

Rui Vilao — Fri, 10 Oct 2003 06:05:44 GMT

You are right I was not clear enough...
This is my script:

cat cmd.sh
#! /usr/bin/ksh

cmd="COMMAND (12)"

parsed_cmd=`echo $cmd|sed -e "s/(/\\\$/" -e "s/)/\\\$/"`

remsh host1 -l user1 -n "export DISPLAY=$DISPLAY;echo $parsed_cmd"

... and it returns:

ksh: syntax error at line 1 : `(' unexpected

TIA,

Rui.

Re: Inserting \ character in a string passed to another command

Graham Cameron_1 — Fri, 10 Oct 2003 06:14:44 GMT

Rui
It's the backticks.
Change
--
parsed_cmd=`echo $cmd|sed -e "s/(/\\\$/" -e "s/)/\\\$/"`
-- to --
parsed_cmd=$(echo $cmd|sed -e "s/(/\\\$/" -e "s/)/\\\$/")
-- Graham

Re: Inserting \ character in a string passed to another command

Mark Grant — Fri, 10 Oct 2003 06:25:02 GMT

I still think putting escaped quotation marks around $parsed_command should work.

Re: Inserting \ character in a string passed to another command

john korterman — Fri, 10 Oct 2003 07:08:46 GMT

Hi,
...and I think that the error resembles what you get when doing this:
$ cmd=COMMAND (12)
ksh: syntax error: `(' unexpected

In your first posting you say that the content of the shell script is:
cmd=$1

If this is in fact the case, try changing it to:
cmd="$"

regards,
John K.

Re: Inserting \ character in a string passed to another command

Rui Vilao — Sat, 11 Oct 2003 07:43:44 GMT

Many thanks to Graham Cameron.

Cheers,

Rui