Inserting \ character in a string passed to another command

[Rui Vilao]

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.

[Graham Cameron_1]

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

[Rui Vilao]

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.

[Mark Grant]

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.

[Graham Cameron_1]

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

[Rui Vilao]

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.

[Graham Cameron_1 · Accepted solution]

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

[Mark Grant]

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

[john korterman]

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.

[Rui Vilao]

Many thanks to Graham Cameron.

Cheers,

Rui