There are a couple of approaches.
One way is to enclose the entire path in quotes then stick the asterisk
on the end - as in:
cp "My Documents/"* /tmp
which you can then use a variable for like this:
Path="My Documents"
cp "${Path}"/* /tmp
You could also use a for loop:
Path="My Documents/"
for FILENAME in ls "${Path}"
do
cp "${Path}${Filename}" "/tmp"
done
Note that this second way of doing it will create "/tmp/My Documents"...
but the first way will put the files in /tmp
P.
On Mon, 2002-10-14 at 20:53, Paul Kraus wrote:
> Ok I lied. I understand why its not working but how should I workaround
> it?
> Do I have to have my script gather a list of the files and the pass it
> the variable?
> That sucks that I can not use a wildcard to just get all.
>
> I have made these changes. Which I though would fix my problem.
> string="My Documents/"
> cp "${string}*" Which I thought would eliminate the problem. I guess I
> am not understanding.
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
> [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]] On Behalf Of James Mohr
> Sent: Monday, October 14, 2002 3:58 PM
> To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
> Subject: Re: Variable Quoting
>
>
>
> On Monday 14 October 2002 20:38, Paul Kraus wrote:
> <SNIP>
> > Now with this change
> > string="My Documents/*"
> > cp "$string" /tmp
> >
> > cp: cannot stat 'My Documents/*':no such file or directory
>
> Sure because the token that is passed to the cp command includes the
> asterisk,
> it doesn't know that it should expand the asterisk (*) to the file
> names, so
> it looks for a file with the literal name '*'.
>
> > So then I for kicks I tried.
> >
> > cp "My Documents/*" /tmp
> > Produces the same error.
>
> Same thing.
>
> >
> > So just to make sure that it was not a typo in path I tried. cp My\
> > Documents/* /tmp
> >
> > And this worked.
>
> Makes sense as the shell is now expanding the asterisks to the names of
> the
> files. You don't see this because it is expanded internally. Create a
> shell
> script that just does this copy and put "set -x" on the first list. This
>
> should show you the expanded form before it is passed to cp.
>
> > So is the problem with cp? Since the same syntax seems to work with
> > all other apps? Is cp not capable of taking a double quoted path with
> > spaces?
>
> No, it is the fact that cp does not know to expand the asterisk. Plus
> you are
> passing different things to the cp depending on what sets of quotes you
> use.
>
> > Redhat 7.3 in case it helps.
> Actually the Linux distriubtion is pretty irrelevant in this case. In
> fact the
> behavior would be the same on most any *NIX system, as it is standard
> shell
> stuff.
>
> See if these explain more of the details for you:
>
> http://www.linux-tutorial.info/cgi-bin/display.pl?20&0&0&0&3
> http://www.linux-tutorial.info/cgi-bin/display.pl?22&0&0&0&3
>
> regards,
>
> jimmo
>
> --
> ---------------------------------------
> "Be more concerned with your character than with your reputation. Your
> character is what you really are while your reputation is merely what
> others think you are." -- John Wooden
> ---------------------------------------
> Be sure to visit the Linux Tutorial: http://www.linux-tutorial.info
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> NOTE: All messages sent to me in response to my posts to newsgroups or
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--
Paul Furness
Systems Manager
2+2=5 for extremely large values of 2.
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