Question

What’s going on here?

printf.sh:

#! /bin/sh NAME='George W. Bush' printf 'Hello, %s\n' $NAME 

Command line session:

$ ./printf.sh Hello, George Hello, W. Hello, Bush 

UPDATE: printf 'Hello, %s\n' '$NAME' works. For why I’m not using echo, consider

echo.sh:

#! /bin/sh FILE='C:\tmp' echo 'Filename: $FILE' 

Command-line:

$ ./echo.sh Filename: C:    mp 

The POSIX spec for echo says, ‘New applications are encouraged to use printf instead of echo‘ (for this and other reasons).

Answer 1

Your NAME variable is being substituted like this:

printf 'Hello, %s\n' George W. Bush 

Use this:

#! /bin/sh NAME='George W. Bush' printf 'Hello, %s\n' '$NAME'