Question

Motivation: I am building a command commitdeploy which I want to accept very raw shell input:

bash$ ./commitdeploy this is my commit message

So I have a script that looks like:

#!/bin/bash
...
git commit -a -m"$@" && ./deploy

Which produces:

fatal: Paths with -a does not make sense.

Here’s what I know:

$@ is the arg-list.

"$@" is the arg-list converted into a string that should show up as a single arg when used

My question is, what exactly is bash trying to send to git? If git is receiving "$@" as not a single arg then I think my characterization of "$@" above is incorrect. It looks like I need to stick more quotes in!

So, which one of the following, if any, are the right way, and why?

option 1: git commit -a -m"\"$@\""
option 2: git commit -a -m\""$@"\"

Answer 1

Use "$*" instead of "$@" if you want everything in one argument.

This is a POSIX feature, so it will work in all POSIX-compatible shells and is not a bash-ism.

#!/bin/sh
# Don't use /bin/bash unless you really need bash-only features.
git commit -a -m "$*" && ./deploy