Question

I wanted to make a little script to save me some typing, but unfortunately I get no output:

#!/bin/bash
grep  -Hnr \"$1\" --include \"*cpp\" --include \"*h\" $2

I played quite a lot with echo and different use of quotes, and convinced myself that line really expands into what I want, but the only way I could actually get any output is with this:

#!/bin/bash
GREP="grep  -Hnr \"$1\" --include \"*cpp\" --include \"*h\" $2"
echo $GREP | bash

An example usage would be:

srcgrep "dynamic_cast" src

I’ve tried this in a simple example directory to rule out anything weird with links, permissions, etc.
So, of course I can just use the second, but any idea what’s wrong in the first case? Thanks.

$ grep -V
grep (GNU grep) 2.5.1
...

$ bash --version
GNU bash, version 3.2.25(1)-release (x86_64-redhat-linux-gnu)
...

Answer 1

Why not just:

#!/bin/bash
grep  -Hnr "$1" --include "*cpp" --include "*h" $2

?