manpreet Best Answer 2 years ago

I would like to execute a command in a bash script that needs both double and single quotes in it.

The command that I want to run looks like this:

some_command --query "'val' is not null"

What I try to achieve is to build this command and execute it from a bash script

command='some_command --query " 'val' is not null "'
output=$($command)
# + some_command --query '"' val is not null '"'

command='some_command --query \" 'val' is not null \"'
output=$($command)
# + some_command --query '\"' val is not null '\"'

But then the command is executed with the quotes being quoted so the actial command has a wrong syntax.

I already tried a ton of different methods like using the character codes or building the command with an array followed by executing with "${array[@]}" but all were to no avail.

update: I'm running this with bash version GNU bash, version 4.3.11(1)-release (x86_64-pc-linux-gnu)

manpreet 2 years ago

command=(some_command --query " 'val' is not null ")
"${command[@]}"

$ declare -p command
declare -a command=([0]="some_command" [1]="--query" [2]=" 'val' is not null ")

$ command=(echo -E " 'val' is not null ")
$ "${command[@]}"
 'val' is not null