Bash quoted array expansion

Question

WHen I write a bash program I typically construct calls like follows:

declare -a mycmd=( command.ext \"arg1 with space\" arg2 thing etc )

\"${mycmd[@]}\" || ech         


        

Answer 1

A cumbersome method (which only quotes arguments that contain spaces):

declare -a myargs=(1 2 "3 4")
for arg in "${myargs[@]}"; do
    # testing if the argument contains space(s)
    if [[ $arg =~ \  ]]; then
      # enclose in double quotes if it does 
      arg=\"$arg\"
    fi 
    echo -n "$arg "
done

Output:

1 2 "3 4"

---

By the way, with regards to quoting is lost on this pass, note that the quotes are never saved. " " is a special character that tells the shell to treat whatever is inside as a single field/argument (i.e. not split it). On the other hand, literal quotes (typed like this \") are preserved.