Passing two-word input to shell script

[Scott Downs]

I have a personalized script that takes inputs using -p, -user, and -role. I am trying to pass a role called "Process Manager" (as in, script.sh -role "Process Manager"), but I only get the first word when I store $1 into a variable (after shifting to it). I have tried with quotes, and without, and each time I just get the first word.

Thank you for any advice!

[Umapathy S]

hi Scott,
You can use getopt in shell scripts. Check the man page for details.

cheers
Umapathy

[Paula J Frazer-Campbell]

Hi

get it as two variables :-

$1 and $2

then $1+$2 = $3

then pass the variable $3.

Paula

[Darren Prior]

Hi,

$* will give you all the arguments.

regards,

Darren.

[Bill Hassell]

text with whitespace is processed by the shell as separate words unless it is enclosed in quotes. This is true both for input as well as output. So if your script reads input from the command line, you must protect the whitespace to make it appear as a single string as in:

two strings "one string" one\ more\ string

In the above example, there are 4 strings. "one string" and one\ more\ string will each be assigned to a single variable.

[Ralph Grothe]

Just a hint, in case you haven't yet stumbled accross it.

Have a look at the getopt program (see its manpage).
It makes parsing of commandline switches so much easier.

Basically, quoting strings that contain whitespace (e.g. "Process Manager"), or quoting each whitespace (e.g. Process\ Mangare) should deliver the argument as one token.

[Ramkumar Devanathan]

hi,

if the script is called like this -

$ script.sh -p xxx -user yyy -role "hello world!"

then add this line to your script -

IFS='"' # IFS=internal field separator

works for me.

HTH.

- ramd.

[Ramkumar Devanathan]

that's a double quote (") within 2 single quotes (') btw.

- ramd.

[John Meissner]

script optionone optiontwo option three

optionvar1=$1
optionvar2=$2
optionvar3="$3 $4"

This should work as well
it sets a variable = to the command line options

[john korterman]

Hi,
when you make the variable assignment of $1 in your script, is $1 qouted? It should be.

regards,
John K.