Question

In shell scripts, what is the difference between $@ and $*?

Which one is the preferred way to get the script arguments?

Are there differences between the different shell interpreters about this?

Answer 1

From here:

$@ behaves like $* except that when quoted the arguments are broken up properly if there are spaces in them.

Take this script for example (taken from the linked answer):

for var in "$@"
do
    echo "$var"
done

Gives this:

$ sh test.sh 1 2 '3 4'
1
2
3 4

Now change "$@" to $*:

for var in $*
do
    echo "$var"
done

And you get this:

$ sh test.sh 1 2 '3 4'
1
2
3
4

(Answer found by using Google)