Escaping quote marks

Ray Leventhal ubuntu at swhi.net
Fri Nov 20 14:24:35 UTC 2009


Ray Parrish wrote:
> Hello,
> 
> I have the following code which I would like to improve.
> 
>     URLs=""
>      while read ThisLine; do
>            case "$ThisLine" in
>                 *\<loc\>*) # if line starts with <loc> concatenate it 
> into string variable URLs.
>                          URLs="$URLs $ThisLine";;
>            esac
>      done < "$MapName"
>      # Prompt user with drop down list of urls to select one to remove 
> from site map.
>      SelectedLine=`Xdialog --stdout --title "Add URL to Site Map - 
> Remove URL" --combobox "Select web page to remove from site map" 10 70 
> $URLs`
> 
> The problem is that if any of the iines starting with <loc> contain 
> spaces in their file names, the combobox presents them broken up at the 
> spaces on separate lines in it's drop down list.
> 
> I have tried to escape quote marks wrapped around each $ThisLine 
> concatenated to the URLs string variable as below to make them 
> individual parameters, but when I do this the quote marks get written to 
> the drop down list, and the entries are still broken at each space.
> 
>                          URLs="$URLs \"$ThisLine\"";;
> 
> Is there any way to get the code to work correctly so it does not break 
> the urls on space characters?
> 
> Thanks for any help you can be.
> 
> Later, Ray Parrish
> 

Hi Ray,

I'm not sure if this will work, but does escaping the space characters 
have the desired effect?

i.e.:  	URLs="$URLs\ \"$ThisLine\"";;

		or

	URLs="$URLs\ $ThisLine";;

HTH,
-Ray

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