Generally if you are pasting file paths there is a better way to do that. Use find with exec, or xargs, or a for loop. Or, get the list in Vim and escape (quote) every line at once. Unless you have double quotes in the filename too (which is actually a crazy thing) it shouldn’t be a big deal.
Expansion matters because using parameters without quotes automatically splits words, and IIRC a quoted array parameter can still be split into its members — as opposed to Zsh, where word splitting doesn’t happen unprompted and quoted array parameters are flattened into a single string.
Generally if I want to run $HOME/random executable with spaces.exe through Wine in a terminal I copy the path in Dolphin (CTRL+SHIFT+C, or CTRL+ALT+C idr) and paste it, within quotes if needed (the four extra key inputs are the annoying part).
I find that much faster than manually typing find "$HOME" -name "random executable with spaces.exe" -type x -exec wine "{}" \;, or opening an editor to insert backslashes.
If the path to the dir is longer than $HOME, say, $HOME/Tools/modding/hd2-audio-modder/wwise/v123456789_idr_but_its_a_long_one/random file name with spaces, it makes more sense.
I’ll try using the braces syntax, if it does prevent word splitting I wasn’t aware of it, though it’s still slightly inconvenient (3 key inputs for each brace on my kb) and I’d probably still use quotes instead if I had to use Bash and had the file path in a variable for some reason.
… though at this point I’m probably overthinking it, atm I don’t recall better examples of my distaste for Bash expansion shenanigans.
Did some testing, here’s what I found.
Beware, it devolves into a rant against Bash and has little to do with the original topic - I just needed to scream into the void a little.
# Zsh
function argn { echo $#; }
var='spaced string'
argn $var
# Prints 1: makes sense, no word splitting here
var=(array 'of strings')
argn $var
# Prints 2: makes sense, I'm using a 2-wide array where I would
# want 2 arguments (the second one happens to have
# a whitespace in it)
# Bashfunctionargn{ echo $#; }var='spaced string'
argn $var# Prints 2: non-array variable gets split in 2 with this simple reference;# I hate it, but hey, it is what it is
argn ${var}
# Prints 2: no, braces do not prevent word splitting as I think you suggestedvar=(array'of strings')
argn $var# Prints 1: ... what?echo$var# Prints array: ... what?!?# It implicitly takes the first element?# At least it doesn't word-split said first element, right?var=('array of' strings)
argn $var# Prints 2:
My bad, I was thinking of zsh. And I think it’s configurable there too so may not behave that way according to your settings. But it is at least the default on Mac.
I use Zsh too, though at this point is becoming detrimental to my (already limited) Bash skills because of features like the ${^array}{1,2,3} syntax which I use in some scripts of mine, which in turn I wouldn’t dare try to translate to Bash.
Example of how parameter expansion matters?
Generally if you are pasting file paths there is a better way to do that. Use find with exec, or xargs, or a for loop. Or, get the list in Vim and escape (quote) every line at once. Unless you have double quotes in the filename too (which is actually a crazy thing) it shouldn’t be a big deal.
Expansion matters because using parameters without quotes automatically splits words, and IIRC a quoted array parameter can still be split into its members — as opposed to Zsh, where word splitting doesn’t happen unprompted and quoted array parameters are flattened into a single string.
Generally if I want to run
$HOME/random executable with spaces.exethrough Wine in a terminal I copy the path in Dolphin (CTRL+SHIFT+C, or CTRL+ALT+C idr) and paste it, within quotes if needed (the four extra key inputs are the annoying part).I find that much faster than manually typing
find "$HOME" -name "random executable with spaces.exe" -type x -exec wine "{}" \;, or opening an editor to insert backslashes.Why on earth not just type
wine ~/randomand then hit tab to autocomplete? Or you could dowine `echo random*`AFAIK, if $file is a filename with spaces, then
some_util ${file}will not split the filename.If the path to the dir is longer than
$HOME, say,$HOME/Tools/modding/hd2-audio-modder/wwise/v123456789_idr_but_its_a_long_one/random file name with spaces, it makes more sense.I’ll try using the braces syntax, if it does prevent word splitting I wasn’t aware of it, though it’s still slightly inconvenient (3 key inputs for each brace on my kb) and I’d probably still use quotes instead if I had to use Bash and had the file path in a variable for some reason.
… though at this point I’m probably overthinking it, atm I don’t recall better examples of my distaste for Bash expansion shenanigans.
Did some testing, here’s what I found.
Beware, it devolves into a rant against Bash and has little to do with the original topic - I just needed to scream into the void a little.
# Bash function argn { echo $#; } var='spaced string' argn $var # Prints 2: non-array variable gets split in 2 with this simple reference; # I hate it, but hey, it is what it is argn ${var} # Prints 2: no, braces do not prevent word splitting as I think you suggested var=(array 'of strings') argn $var # Prints 1: ... what? echo $var # Prints array: ... what?!? # It implicitly takes the first element? # At least it doesn't word-split said first element, right? var=('array of' strings) argn $var # Prints 2:My bad, I was thinking of zsh. And I think it’s configurable there too so may not behave that way according to your settings. But it is at least the default on Mac.
I use Zsh too, though at this point is becoming detrimental to my (already limited) Bash skills because of features like the
${^array}{1,2,3}syntax which I use in some scripts of mine, which in turn I wouldn’t dare try to translate to Bash.