Yeah, that's OT. on irc there is #bash which should be the source of knowledge to gather some keywords. Nevertheless here is your solution
First get a test script (copy paste into your bash shell): args1="one two" args2="three four" sh -c 'for x in "$@"; do echo arg: $x; done' -- $args1 $args2 it prints: arg: one arg: two arg: three arg: four so you already have what you want. Now what if one is 'o n e' (containing spaces?) solution: use arrays: args1=("o n e" "t w o") args2=("t h r e e" "f o u r") sh -c 'for x in "$@"; do echo arg: $x; done' -- "${args1[@]}" "${args2[@]}" which yields: arg: o n e arg: t w o arg: t h r e e arg: f o u r which is what you want. Add element to array: args1=("${args1[@]" "new arg") zsh note: $foo corresponds to "$foo" of bash. ${=foo} corresponds to the "treat spaces as arg separator" bash like behaviour (if you don't use "") Thus its hard to write portable code. In general use a scripting language (ruby/python/perl/tcl/..) for everything more complicated. bash starts to be a bottle neck very soon (example is top-git) Marc Weber _______________________________________________ nix-dev mailing list nix-dev@lists.science.uu.nl http://lists.science.uu.nl/mailman/listinfo/nix-dev