Re: [sr #111058] Problem transmitting script arguments

[Kerin Millar]

On Mon, 6 May 2024, at 7:01 PM, Dale R. Worley wrote:
> anonymous <INVALID.NOREPLY@gnu.org> writes:
>> URL:
>>   <https://savannah.gnu.org/support/?111058>
>>
>>                  Summary: Problem transmitting script arguments
>
>> Date: Sat 04 May 2024 10:08:41 AM UTC By: Anonymous
>> I have the following problem with transmitting arguments to a bash script
>> onward to an inside program call.
>>
>> Lets name the inside program 'Z'.
>> An open number of arguments have to be transmitted from the script 
>> environment
>> to Z's environment. If an argument aa is given enclosed in double-quotes to
>> the script (because there are blanks within the value) these double-quotes 
>> are
>> removed when bash gets hold of it. When I transmit aa by use of $x, $* or $@,
>> the double-quotes are not resurrected by bash, which I think is a tragic
>> mistake because the call of Z obviously suffers a semantic error.
>>
>> So far I could not solve the problem. As this kind of problem cannot be new,
>> is there any recommended way to solve it?
>
> Providing a detailed example would make your requirements clearer.
>
> But if I understand correctly, you want to provide all of the arguments
> that the Bash script receives as arguments to another program, "Z".  The
> standard way to do this is:
>
>     Z "$@"
>
> Indeed, it appears that $@ was created with special behavior precisely
> to handle this situation.  From the manual page:
>
>        @      Expands  to  the  positional  parameters, starting from one.  In
>               contexts where word splitting is performed,  this  expands  each
>               positional  parameter  to  a separate word; if not within double
>               quotes, these words are subject to word splitting.  In  contexts
>               where  word splitting is not performed, this expands to a single
>               word with each positional parameter separated by a space.   When
>               the  expansion  occurs  within double quotes, each parameter ex‐
>               pands to a separate word.  That is, "$@" is equivalent  to  "$1"
>               "$2"  ...   If the double-quoted expansion occurs within a word,
>               the expansion of the first parameter is joined with  the  begin‐
>               ning  part  of  the original word, and the expansion of the last
>               parameter is joined with the last part  of  the  original  word.
>               When  there  are no positional parameters, "$@" and $@ expand to
>               nothing (i.e., they are removed).
>
> Dale

It's likely that your reply will never be seen by the anonymous Savannah issue 
filer.

-- 
Kerin Millar