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bashvariablesyoutube-dl

What's wrong with this youtube-dl automatic script?

first of all, I'm quite new with bash scripting and I'm just starting to learn, evidently there's something wrong with this script, but I don't know what it is...

I created a bash script to automate downloading videos with youtube-dl:

#!/bin/bash

echo url:
read url
export url
youtube-dl -f 'bestvideo[height<=360]+worstaudio/worst[height<=360]' $url

The idea is that I type in the command line the name of the script, e.g.: "360" and it will ask for a url (e.g.: a Youtube video), I paste it and youtube-dl downloads it with the stated parameters. It works like a charm...

Now, I want to make the script more complex and I think I need to convert the youtube-dl command to a variable (of course, being a newbie, I might be wrong, but let's assume I'm right for a moment...)

#!/bin/bash

video="youtube-dl -f 'bestvideo[height<=360]+worstaudio/worst[height<=360]'"

echo url:
read url
export url
$video $url

When I try this, it throws me an error: "ERROR: requested format not available " I don't know what's wrong... I'd like to solve the problem with the least changes to the code as possible and I repeat, I'd like to know what's wrong with the current code so I can learn from it.

Thank you very much in advance!

Solution

  • It's explained in detail here here: I'm trying to put a command in a variable, but the complex cases always fail!

    First always double-quote your variables, unless you know exactly what will happen if you don't.

    You don't need to export that variable: you're not invoking any other program that needs to use it.

    When you want to re-use a command, think about putting it in a function:

    #!/bin/bash
function video {
    youtube-dl -f 'bestvideo[height<=360]+worstaudio/worst[height<=360]' "$1"
}
read -p "url: " url
video "$url"

    Actually, I would do this:

    1. add that function to your ~/.bashrc,
    2. source that file: source ~/.bashrc

    3. then you can use it from the command line:

      video 'https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dQw4w9WgXcQ'