Question

I am trying to write a bash script so that I will use to replace my egrep command. I want to be able to take the exact same input that is given to my script and feed it to egrep.
i.e.

#!/bin/bash
PARAMS=$@
`egrep "$PARAMS"`

But I have noticed that if I echo what I am executing, that the quotes have been removed as follows:

./customEgrep -nr “grep my ish” *

returns

egrep -nr grep my ish (file list from the expanded *)

Is there a way that I can take the input literally so I can use it directly with egrep?

Answer 1

You want this:

egrep "$@"

The quotes you type are not passed to the script; they’re used to determine word boundaries. Using "$@" preserves those word boundaries, so egrep will get the same arguments as it would if you ran it directly. But you still won’t see quotation marks if you echo the arguments.