Question

I have a script that uses strace, cp, awk, and stat, to create a cp with a progress bar. Here is the part of the code where it calls cp:

    strace -q -ewrite cp -- `printf '%q ' $@` 2>&1 | awk {Lots of code here}

The problem is, I cannot copy anything with a space. How should I modify this script so it will work with spaces? Thanks

EDIT: Here is the output:

matt: ~/tmp $ bash -x cp-progress "q" "file"
++ printf '%q ' q file
++ stat -c %s q
+ strace -q -ewrite cp -- q file
+ awk '{
        count += $NF
            if (count % 10 == 0) {
               percent = count / total_size * 100
               printf "%2d%% [", percent
               for (i=0;i<=percent / 2;i++)
                  printf "→"
               printf "→"

               printf "]\r"
            }
         }
         END { print "" }' total_size=5242880 count=0
100% [→→→→→→→→→→→→→→→→→→→→→→→→→→→→→→→→→→→→→→→→→→→→→→→→→→→→]
matt: ~/tmp $ bash -x cp-progress "q" "file with spaces"
++ printf '%q ' q 'file with spaces'
+ strace -q -ewrite cp -- q 'file\' 'with\' spaces
++ stat -c %s q
+ awk '{
        count += $NF
            if (count % 10 == 0) {
               percent = count / total_size * 100
               printf "%2d%% [", percent
               for (i=0;i<=percent / 2;i++)
                  printf "→"
               printf "→"

               printf "]\r"
            }
         }
         END { print "" }' total_size=5242880 count=0
 0% [→→]

See the first one? That works fine, which executes cp -- q file. Now, the next one, cp -- q 'file\' 'with\' spaces how do I fix that?

Answer 1

use "$@"

man bash:

When  the expansion  occurs within double quotes, each parameter expands to a
separate word.  That is, "$@" is equivalent to "$1"  "$2"  ...

In your case, use this form:

strace -q -ewrite cp -- "$@" | ...