Question

I get some strange behavior when trying to pass script parameters along to an external program, in ksh.

My setup is like this :
– I have a ksh script (called “test”), that boils down to something like this :

...
args="$@"
java my_main_class $args
...

– If I call this script with something like :

> ./test "param1 param2" param3

…then the external application sees the following parameters : (param1, param2, param3)

• If I change the script into something like :

  ...
  java my_main_class "$@"
  ...
  

…and do the same invocation, then my external application sees the following parameters (param1 param2, param3) – meaning that now, parameters are correctly seen.

Question : how can I modify my first version of the script, in order to correctly pass the parameters containing spaces, while still storing the “@$” into a variable, before external program invocation ?

Kind regards,
Andrei

Answer 1

First, let’s setup the same session:

$ set -- "param1 param2" param3
$ echo $1, $2

param1 param2, param3

ksh and bash offer a valid solution with an array assignment:

$ args=("$@")
$ fake_java() { ( for w; do echo "$w"; done ); }

This will still fail without quoting:

$ fake_java ${args[@]}

param1

param2

param3

But quotes and array combined make this work:

$ fake_java my_main_class "${args[@]}"

param1 param2

param3