Question

I tried to create a script to list the contents of a directory:

#!/bin/bash
matched=$(ls -1 /data/ | grep $1)
echo $matched

I have added the parameter -1 to the ls command and when executed like this ./script dir the output is on one row:

dir1 dir2

I’ve also tried echo -e $matched, but the output was:

-e dir1 dir2

So how can I list the directories each on separate line ?

Answer 1

Try using double quotes around the string to be echoed:

echo "$matched"

The quotes here cause certain special characters to be preserved; see here.

Edit: See cdarke’s comment for a better explanation.