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shellshrake-task

Shell script: Surround variable with quotes when passing into an array?

I have a shell script where part of it does this:

bundle exec rake parallel[${@:3}];

${@:3} is dynamic and could be something like -p thread11 THREAD=test_thread11, or just @test.feature

The rake task is expecting one argument but no matter what I try I can't get the shell script to surround the variable with quotes so instead of sending something like

bundle exec rake parallel["-p thread11 THREAD=test_thread11"]

I end up sending

bundle exec rake parallel[-p thread11 THREAD=test_thread11]

Which causes the rake task to fail.

With an echo statement I can get the correct output by doing

echo "Will use run command" bundle exec rake parallel["'${@:3}'"]

Is it possible to surround the value of the variable with quotes when passing it to the task?

Solution

  • It appears you want to use "${*:3}" instead, which will produces a single space-delimited word from the 3 arguments rather than a series of individuals words, one per argument.